Tension
by Thalius
Summary: Mildly AU. Lasky and Palmer both have their duties aboard the Infinity, and both of them are left with little time to relax or lay to rest the ghosts they carry with them. When they realize that they share similar burdens, they find themselves gravitating towards something greater than friendship. Rated M.
1. Goodnight

**AN:** Hello all! I've decided that for my first addition to FF's archive of Halo stories, I'd write some smut. This will be a multiple chapter piece and will be updated randomly. Now, there's nothing too racy in chapter one, but it _is_ rated M and will contain lemons. So if that's not your jam, you've been warned. This also takes place during (and after) Spartan Ops. I messed around a bit with the timeline and future events, hence the slight AU, but it should for the most part follow canon.

Well, happy reading!

* * *

**Chapter One - Goodnight  
**

He was certain there had been a point in his life when he knew what eight hours of sleep felt like, but Lasky was finding it increasingly difficult to remember.

"Next, Roland," he muttered into his palm. His laptop's screen blared harsh light into the dimly lit captain's quarters, but he was too tired to get up and adjust the lighting.

"Do you want me to turn the lights on, Captain?" Apparently his AI was a mind-reader.

"Just the lamp," he relented, and behind him a soft glow clicked on and lessened the impact of the white computer light in the room. "Shouldn't—" He stopped and let loose a jaw-cracking yawn. "Shouldn't be too much longer with the paperwork, anyway."

Roland appeared beside him, and imitated a cough. "Sir," he began slowly. "There are currently seven hundred and forty-one pending files that still need revision from this section alone. We're still going through the aft docking crew."

He rubbed his eyes. "Can't you do this? Why do I have to?"

Roland sniffed, looking offended. "Brass wants a more human touch, sir. They think it would be good for morale of you personally detail the crew's strengths and weaknesses. It has made a significant impact on other UNSC vessels—"

"If I had a problem with my crew, I'd speak to them directly, not write it down on a piece of paper and hand it to them," he groused.

"They want a more official way of providing conflict resolution, sir."

"Maybe, but there are _seventeen thousand_ people on _Infinity," _he protested. "How did Del Rio do this?"

"He didn't, sir."

Lasky sighed, rubbing his eyes again. "What did I even say on the last file?"

"That Crewmen Kellen Mags is punctual but needs improvement on... I believe you meant to type the words personal hygiene. I'm surprised spell check didn't correct the errors in your spe—"

"Who is Crewmen Mags, again?"

Roland presented him with a profile of Mags on his laptop screen. "The woman with the bald spot behind her left ear."

"Oh. Good enough. Next one. Wait—" he sat up and shoved away from his desk. "I need to pee first."

He limped to the bathroom, trying to work the feeling back into his legs. He looked at the clock on his bedside table as he passed by and realised he'd been doing crewmen profiles for almost three hours.

_I ran out of different ways to say "hardworking" two and a half hours ago._

After emptying his bladder, he splashed water on his face, trying to stay awake. He had a meeting tomorrow at oh-seven hundred... to present the files he'd been working on. He'd have to piecemeal the reports over the course of a few months if he wanted to get them finished and not pass out from fatigue. Maybe he'd pass the task on to his XO, or possibly some other officer he didn't like. The thought brought him some form of joy in his half-awake state.

He idly scratched at a blister on his wrist, which he'd gotten from cryo last week, when he heard an aggressive pounding on the wall of his quarters.

"Commander Sarah Palmer is at your door, sir."

He frowned. Palmer? This late at night? He shuffled out of the bathroom and keyed open his door, frowning up at the woman taking up all the space in his doorframe.

"Palmer? What can I—"

"Are those duck pyjamas?"

He looked down at himself. _Shit._ His white t-shirt was standard enough, but he'd replaced the itchy-as-hell off-duty trousers with the cotton ones he'd gotten from shore leave. He'd grabbed the first ones that had looked comfortable in the store, barely aware of what he'd been purchasing at the time, and it wasn't as if he was sharing his room with someone who would see them. Still, maybe he should have taken the time to find something less colourful.

"Yeah," he muttered, blinking. "What did you need, Commander?"

"Why ducks?" she asked, eyeing his pants with growing interest.

"To annoy you," he shot back. "I'm going back to paperwork."

"Wait," she said forcefully, and her tone woke him up. The amusement drained from her face, and she suddenly looked a hundred years old. "Can I talk to you?"

He swept his arm into his room, nodding. "Come on in."

She walked past him silently, immediately sitting down in his office chair. He moved to take a seat in his bunk, but remembered his manners before sitting down. "Can I get you something?"

"Do you have any alcohol?"

He frowned. "A bottle of whiskey, but that's all."

She pointed to the desk. "I'll have one."

He nodded, quickly heading to the sparse kitchenette in his quarters and making up two glasses. It looked like he wasn't doing any more paperwork tonight, so he might as well get buzzed.

When he handed Palmer the glass, she downed it in one go. He was by no means a spring chicken when it came to alcohol, but he didn't know many people who could achieve what she just did, especially without coughing or choking.

"This is about Fireteam Grand," he murmured, raising his glass passingly before taking a sip of his own drink.

"I haven't written any of the condolence letters yet," she whispered. "Seven letters to seven families. Did you know that Carlton's wife just had a baby?"

"Jesus." He took another sip. "And here I was complaining about crewmen reports."

Palmer's eyes were red, but dry. She glared into her empty glass. "We've finished the war and there's still so much death." He watched her hands curl and uncurl in her lap, the tendons straining against her skin. "A whole Fireteam in one day."

"You can't—" God, how cliche. _You can't blame yourself_. The words sounded so fake. "Their deaths weren't your fault."

"Oh really?" Anger replaced the melancholy in her voice. "I sent them onto that planet with intel _I _gathered."

"Troop movements change. You can't predict everyth—"

"Shut up, Tom, and get me another drink."

Ignoring the insubordination, he did as she ordered. Again, Palmer tossed back the amber liquid in one go, looking more miserable with each passing moment.

"Take it easy, Sarah. Getting drunk won't help."

"I disagree." She glared at him and grabbed his glass, gulping it down before he had time to even register what she'd done.

He knew what she was doing. He could see it in her face as she continued to glare at him.

"You want someone to be angry with you for fucking up," he shot back at her.

"Fuck you," she replied, clanking his glass down hard next to hers. "I just wanted your alcohol, Lasky, not your opinion."

"You said you wanted to talk, not drink."

"That's why God invented _lying."_

"I'm not going to yell at you. You did your best and it wasn't enough; it happens."

"'It happens'," she repeated, scoffing. "You make it sound like I slept in and was late to some meeting. Seven of my Spartans died today, Tom!" She stood up, and he found himself eye-level with her collarbone.

"Was it worth it?" he asked, trying not to look intimidated by the drunk, angry Spartan standing in front of him.

"What?"

"Did they send back anything—did they complete the mission?"

"Yes," she admitted grudgingly. "That and more. We've got more intel on Covie movement on Requiem than we've ever had."

"Then they're lives spent, not wasted. I know it doesn't make them any less dead, but they died for a good reason."

"Catchy phrase," she commented, sitting back down. She wiped at her eyes, and glared down at the wetness on her hand.

"A rip off; I didn't come up with it." He took a seat on his mattress, watching her face. She was pushing away whatever pain she felt, burying it deep. The smile she gave him was weak and fake.

"Who's you plagiarise it from?"

"Master Chief," he murmured, and she raised a brow. "I spoke to him briefly, before he left the ship. I told him I was sorry about Cortana, his AI, and he said 'better to be a life spent than a life wasted'."

"I didn't know he was such a poet," Sarah muttered.

He ran a hand through his hair. "You've distracted me. We should be talking about Grand."

She looked away. "Not much to say."

"You feel guilty."

"I didn't know you were a psychologist," she bit back. "Yes, I feel guilty."

"Why are you being nasty? You came here to talk to me."

Her face closed off whatever emotion she'd been showing. "Well, I'm sorry I disturbed you." She stood up, wiping her eyes again.

"Sarah—wait. Don't go."

"Why? I thought I was being nasty."

"See?" he said gently, standing up. "There. I'm not the one you should be angry at."

"I'm the Commander Bitch, I'm angry at everyone." Her hands curled into fists at her sides, and it was then that he realised just how much her Spartan's supposed opinion meant to her. _And _that she was dressed in only a tank top and crewmen pants. She hadn't been able to sleep, either.

"What's this about? Did someone say something to you?"

She met his eyes. Her expression was not a pleasant one. "They don't have to. I see the looks. I'm a bitch for keeping them alive and I'm a bitch for letting them die."

"Being hard and being a bitch are two different things," he corrected her. "You run your Spartans only as hard as you run yourself. There's no crime in that."

"It isn't working! You saw the look that _cunt _Halsey gave me! My Spartans can't touch the Spartan-IIs with a ten-foot pole!"

"Spartan-IIs also have great difficulty carrying out a conversation," Lasky commented dryly. "They might be better soldiers, but they've given up any social or emotional understanding to get there. I don't even think the Chief knows why he's mourning." He saw Palmer's face relax the tiniest bit, and he forged on, determined to get the anguished expression off of her face. "You've made your Spartans the best they can be, while still allowing them to keep their humanity. I don't see bitch anywhere in there."

"And yet they're still dying," she whispered.

"I'm pretty sure most of the Spartan-IIs are dead. You can't train death out of soldiers."

"Why do you always know what to say?" It sounded like an accusation, but he saw the grateful look in her eyes.

His brows furrowed. "I don't. I just say what I'd want to hear."

Sarah smiled. "You're a good friend, Tom."

He returned the smile. "So are you. I know it's tough losing people, but I sleep easy knowing that my crew isn't dying because you don't care or don't train them properly."

"You look like you don't sleep at all," she said dryly. He took the silent cue and switched to a lighter subject. At least she was feeling better.

"Staring at a computer screen is the closest I usually get," he agreed, rubbing his eyes. "I've got a meeting in five hours and I've barely started the paperwork I need to present."

"Oh. I didn't—I'll fuck off then. Sor—" She looked sheepish, but he waved her off.

"No, no. I'm not complaining. There was no way I'd get it done in time anyway."

"I don't think the excuse of having a lonely Spartan in your room will fly with brass," Palmer commented in amusement, crossing her arms. He tried not to notice the effect it had on her breasts.

He looked down at himself. "Yes, because I'm so very attractive in duck pyjamas and blisters." He scratched his wrist again. He'd have to put cream on it soon.

"More than you know," she whispered. Or rather, that's what he thought she said. The words were said so quietly that he could have imagined it.

"Sorry?"

She touched his arm. "Goodnight, Tom." Palmer gave him a parting smile before heading for the door, this one real and warm.

"You too, Sarah," he replied back. "Oh, and if you need help writing letters, let me know."

She shook her head, stopping in the frame of his door to look back at him. "You're too sweet for the UNSC."

He allowed himself the warm feeling spreading in his chest that her words afforded him, and moved to shut off his laptop. Roland, who had disappeared during his conversation with Palmer, popped back up next to his desk.

"I can send a message saying that you are not feeling well and won't be able to make the meeting tomorrow."

He shook his head. "Tempting, but I have to go. They'll get their reports when I have the time to finish them."

"Very well, Captain. Goodnight."

He nodded to the AI, who disappeared from view again. With that, he shut off the lamp and climbed into his bed, falling asleep before his head hit the pillow.


	2. Itching

**Chapter Two - Itching  
**

He was so _itchy._

He rubbed a hand across his chest, but it did nothing to quell the fire burning his skin. His uniform was too thick and restrictive to allow any sort of relief from the blisters by scratching. He'd have to excuse himself from the deck soon and take off his shirt to scratch at the rash, even though he knew he shouldn't.

Their last supply ship had been destroyed by 'Mdama's men, and in that supply run had been the cream he'd been instructed to put on the blisters he got from the cytoprethaline during cryosleep. He'd run out of the salve a week ago, and the only thing the doctors could do was shake their heads and give him aloe vera for the inflammation.

"It's been two standard Earth months since the drills were run, sir, and even longer since the klaxons were tested." Roland's voice finally filtered through, and he tried to stop thinking about feeling like his whole body was being scrubbed down with a cactus.

"Throughout which areas of the ship?" he asked, pulling on the collar of his jacket.

"Decks A through F haven't been tested in sixty-three days; decks G through K haven't been tested in forty-one days, and—"

"So all of them," he interrupted, rubbing his back into his seat, unable to reach the irritated spot between his shoulder blades.

Roland took his impatience in graceful stride, nodding. "Ninety-two percent of the decks, yes."

"Run them all tonight at twenty-three hundred, then, so they don't disrupt daytime operations, and tell Commander Bradley and Lieutenant Priselkov about it." Most of the officers on board were rather miffed if he didn't keep them excruciatingly up-to-date on _Infinity's_ daily routine, which he supposed was a good thing; it built up trust and stable communication lines. It just meant even _more _paperwork for him.

He shuddered, another wave of itchy, dry heat running over his body from the blisters. The skin was already irritated from his clothing rubbing against it all morning, and coupled with the lack of relief from not having his prescription balm, they burned like hell.

Roland picked up on his discomfort, watching him squirm with interest. "Are you quite alright, Captain?"

"No I'm not!" he snarled, standing up and grabbing the front of his uniform, rubbing it violently against his chest in a vain attempt to ease the itch. His throat closed in a cough from the sudden yelling, and he put a hand on his chair to steady himself. It'd been bothering him all morning, and by noon he'd been maddeningly uncomfortable. _Now _it was unbearable, and he wondered if maybe he should go douse himself in ice water to relieve the rash.

Roland frowned. "Would you like me to contact one of the medical staff?"

"There's nothing they can do. I'll have to wait for the next supply run." He coughed again. "When is that, by the way?"

"In five weeks, sir."

"I'll have ripped all my skin off by then," he muttered. He scratched at his neck. "I'll be right back."

He ducked into the nearest crewmen washroom that he could find and peeled off his uniform top. Someone might come in, but he was in too much discomfort to care. Taking off the whole ensemble took long enough to infuriate him, especially when the straps of the bulletproof vest underneath the overcoat wouldn't unlatch properly. He tried to remain calm—getting angry only constricted his already-tight throat and chest, and he didn't want to bring on anymore coughing fits. The first week after cryo was always the hardest, but it hadn't been this bad in a long time.

He let loose a string of curses while he ripped off his uniform, sighing in relief when the cool, dry air finally came into contact with his skin. He turned on one of the sink taps and cranked it all the way to cold, splashing the water over the worst of the blisters.

He winced when he looked at himself in the mirror. Angry red patches dotted his torso, the largest one stretching all down the right side, covering his ribs and part of his abdomen. Maybe he would go to the infirmary, if only to bandage them and use whatever cream they had on hand.

"Lasky, are you—oh, Jesus."

He looked up and saw Palmer standing behind him, half of her still in the doorway. Blood spotted in her auburn hair and her lip was split. Even in dirty combat gear, covered in sweat, and staring at him wide-eyed, she still somehow managed to look professional. Something he was having a difficult time achieving at present.

"I didn't know you were back." He tried for casual, but his throat constricted in another cough at the end of his sentence, making his voice sound high and strained.

"Caught a break and got back early. Roland told me you were in here," she replied, and to his dismay she was looking at him with something approaching horrified awe. "You need a doctor."

"I'm fine. Just itchy."

"You're bleeding."

"No I'm n—oh." He saw a small line of blood trickle down his left bicep. The skin had been rubbed raw from his coat and split open in an ugly gash.

"I didn't know it was that bad," she murmured, moving closer to him. She was even taller in armour, and dwarfed him in the mirror.

"It usually isn't. I just ran out of the cream I use. I'll get some in next supply drop."

"They didn't discharge you for this?" she asked. Her hand raised as if to touch his skin, but thought better of it and let her hand drop back down.

He splashed cold water on his ribs, shivering. "I was issued a medical discharge, but it was buried after Circinius IV was glassed. No one alive knew I had the allergy except for Sully and Orenski, so I kept it quiet. By the time brass found out again I was an officer, and I was needed in the War too much to be dismissed. It's not fatal, just… unpleasant."

"Looks painful."

"Were you wanting to be debriefed?" He felt uncomfortable with the way Palmer eyed the blisters, and moved to put his uniform back on. He'd go back to his room and do this where there wasn't a chance of someone ogling the blisters and old scars covering his skin.

"Yes. And you'll be pleased to know we found a few UNSC supply crates in the hinge-head's base. One of them was stamped as medical."

He looked up, eyes wide. "I think you might just get a promotion for that."

She laughed. "I'll pass, thanks. Got enough paperwork as is."

"Let me see the crates, and then we'll go do your report," he replied, scratching at his wrist and pulling his uniform back on.

* * *

"There is a god after all," he muttered to himself, pulling out a long tube from the supply crate. To his immense relief, he could see several others of its kind nestled in with the other medical supplies. He'd survive the five weeks before the next supply drop after all.

"So that's your cream, then?"

"Yes. Thank you, Palmer." He looked up at her and smiled. "You've made my week."

"You're easy to please," she said, shaking off the compliment.

He looked at the other Spartans hanging around near the crates, obviously all interested to see what was inside them. "Can you…."

"I won't say anything," she assured him, and his shoulders sagged in relief. "It's nobody's business anyway."

"Thanks again. I'll be off, then. Come back up to the deck so we can put all this—" he gestured to the supply containers, "—in the after-action report."

"Did you…." She trailed off, and to his surprise he saw her blush.

"Did I what?"

"I saw you had some blisters on your back and shoulders. Did you... need help applying the cream?"

He grinned. "Are you trying to seduce me, Palmer?"

"Actually, I've got a thing for rashes and blisters," she shot back. "And ducks. You seem to fit my very specific list of fetishes, Captain Lasky."

"God, _please_ do not tell anybody about that. I should burn those pants."

"I think they're cute."

"I'll get rid of them after I'm done slathering this shit on," he muttered. "Maybe I'll vent them out the airlocks."

Sarah tried to sober her expression with a limited amount of success. "My offer still stands, Tom."

He frowned down at the tube. "It's… kind of gross."

"I'm a trained field medic. I've seen worse than blisters."

He sighed. He really should just get one of the nurses to do it. Then he could avoid Palmer inspecting the rash covering his body. But young, grinning Sarah smoothing cream all over him sounded a lot better than asking old Doctor Tran to do it.

"This is really not work an officer should be doing."

She must have heard the uncertainty in his voice, because she grinned in triumph. "You can pay me extra for it then."

He shook his head in defeat. "Very well. I'll head to my quarters; meet me there. And see a nurse about that gash," he added, looking pointedly at her bloody forehead.

She waved it off. "Yeah, yeah."

"That's an order, Palmer. I mean it."

She stood at attention snapped him a perfect salute, grinning the entire time. "Aye aye, sir!"

"Much better."

* * *

It had been an innocent enough offer on Palmer's part, but by the time he was back in his quarters and eyeing the blisters covering his skin in the bathroom mirror, he felt horribly nervous.

It wasn't as if she hadn't seen him unclothed before, and he'd applied the ointment to the areas he could reach, already toning down their severity, but it would be embarrassing for her to see him, _really_ see him like this. He was the captain; he wasn't supposed to show weakness, especially as something as human as an allergy. And it was hardly pleasant to look at.

He patched the rashes at his bicep and side with gauze and medical tape after lathering them with salve, far preferring the sight of the sterile-white bandage to the angry sores, and rinsed the excess ointment off of his hands. He then began looking at the rest of his body, wondering what else he could bandage up. Maybe he'd just wrap his whole body up in gauze and become a mummy.

When he began inspecting the stubble covering his chin, he huffed and glared at himself. She was coming to his quarters as a friend to help him with an allergy. The opposite of anything romantic he could think of. But even so... the thought of her looking his body over and finding nothing but old scars and blisters was distressing.

_Especially since the last woman who saw you naked practically ran screaming from the room when she saw them._

A knock at his door made him jump, and he quickly exited his bathroom, dispelling his self-pitying thoughts. He almost opened the door before realising he had no shirt on, and that the visitor may not be Sarah. He grabbed his undershirt and scrambled to pull it on, hearing another knock, louder this time.

"One moment!" he called.

"It's just me, Tom," Palmer called back.

He smoothed down the shirt and hurried to open the door. "Palmer," he greeted, trying not to sound out of breath.

"Your shirt's on backwards," she commented and pushed past him. She had taken off her armour and was now clad in the form-fitting bio-suit the Spartans wore beneath their gear.

He frowned down at himself. "Well, whatever. I just put this on in case it wasn't you."

"Parading around shirtless for me, were you?"

His face heated. "No, I—I didn't mean it like that—"

"Are you blushing, Captain Lasky?"

"What? No," he muttered, rubbing at his cheeks. "Are we doing this or not?"

"You'll have to strip first," she said, grinning. She sat down in his office chair again, clearly pleased with herself. She crossed her legs, and he noticed the fabric of her pants tightening around her toned thighs. "Go on."

He glared at her. "I should have gotten Tran to do this."

"Tran can't see past his own nose. How old is he, anyway?"

He ignored her and removed his shirt as discretely as possible, all-too-aware of Sarah watching his every move.

"Not much of a show," she commented when he tossed the shirt onto the bed. "You'll have to go slower next time."

"There will not be a next time," he swore, heading to the bathroom and grabbing the tube of balm. _This is such a goddamn bad idea._

"Oh, you know how to cure a cytoprethaline allergy, do you?" she said when he re-entered the main room, tube in hand.

"You're enjoying this far too much."

"Yes I am," she agreed, standing up. She made a twirling motion with her hand. "Now turn around."

He did as she said, feeling his face flush again. He wondered what his back looked like.

Sarah whistled at the sight, doing nothing to calm his nerves. "Hot damn, that must hurt."

"You know what? Never mind. I'll go to the infirmary," he growled, heading for his shirt, face flaming.

A large hand grabbed his shoulder, her grip firm. "Wait, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you." Her tone softened, and she sounded genuinely sorry. She still had a grin on her face, though.

"You shouldn't see this," he said quietly, gesturing to himself. "It's not right."

"You're embarrassed."

"Of course I am! Look at this!" he barked, spreading his arms out at his sides. "I've got horrible blisters all over me!"

Sarah took a few steps away from him and reached behind her. When he heard a hiss of an unlatched seal, his eyes widened. "What are you doing?"

"Showing you something. Don't be a prude." She shrugged out of the top half of her bio-suit, exposing her upper body. She did not have a bra on.

His face somehow managed to turn a deeper shade of crimson, and he quickly looked at the floor. "Sarah, put your suit back on," he said to his shoes.

"No, look at me," she said firmly. He did so reluctantly, peeking at her from under his lashes.

He avoided looking at her breasts at all, and instead focused on the rest of her—and the scars lashing most of her skin. Some were faded, years old, others fresh and half-healed. Some were clearly surgical with their precise lines and neat scarring, but most were grizzled, raised white tissue ribboning across her body. A grim account of past battles and wars, leaving marks on her as compensation for her continued survival.

"Do you think I'm ugly? I've got a lot more scars that you can't see, too," she added, looking down at herself. "A _lot _more."

"Of course I don't think that," he said immediately, casting his eyes down again. "But this is different."

"Because you didn't get them on a battlefield?" She moved closer, and he caught the smell of her skin. He swallowed hard.

"Put your suit on, Palmer."

"Why?"

He looked up. "Because—" The look on her face silenced whatever words he was about to say.

Her grin had disappeared, but the expression in her gaze was even lovelier than a smile. "Turn around, Tom, and let me put that shit on your back."

He swallowed again and nodded, turning his back to her. She slipped her hand in his and took the tube from him, uncapping it behind him.

He'd seen her naked before. Everyone entered and exited cryo nude, and he'd seen her in the decon showers often enough. But they'd never been alone, and he'd never dared to look at her for long.

She smoothed her hands over the skin of his shoulders, and despite himself he felt his body relax. He was sure she'd be able to snap his neck with her ring finger if she so desired, but right now her touch was gentle and soft, and his muscles went lax beneath her palms.

Slowly, his back stopped feeling like it was on fire, the balm almost immediately taking effect and soothing the inflamed rash. Sarah massaged in the cream over the length of his whole back, even on the unblemished areas, but he was enjoying it too much to comment. It warmed under her fingers and left him feeling sleepy—and, to his chagrin, aroused. It had been a laughably long time since a woman had touched him, and even longer since said touch had been that caring or gentle.

"Tom?"

He opened his eyes, not realising he'd closed them. He turned around, careful to meet her gaze and not look at her skin.

"Thank you, Sarah." From this close, he could feel the heat coming off her body. He wondered if all Spartans were so warm, or if she was the exception. He also wondered if her skin was warm to the touch.

She must have seen something in his face, because she took a step closer. "Anytime," she whispered. And then she kissed him.


	3. Interruptions

**Chapter Three - Interruptions  
**

He really shouldn't be shocked; ever since Palmer had entered his room he'd felt the undercurrent of tension, electric enough to keep his heart rate up above normal. And then she'd pulled her shirt off and touched him… but he was still somehow too stunned to move.

She pulled away from his mouth, far too soon, and looked down at him. "Struck dumb, captain?" she whispered, grinning.

_Say something. _God, her lips were so soft. All of her looked soft, even with how fit she was. He had an overpowering urge to touch her, to feel if she was as inviting as she looked.

Her hands cupped his face, and a bit of the excess cream on her fingers left a trail on his skin. "Is this all it takes to make you quiet?" _You still haven't said anything._

"Why did you do that?" he finally managed.

That was the wrong thing to say. Her smile slackened. "Because I wanted to?" she replied, her tone becoming dry and challenging.

"Sorry, no—" He shook his head. "I didn't mean that, or I meant—not that way. It's just—this is _really _against regulation—"

"Half the ship thinks we're sleeping together anyway," she pointed out. "And you're really gonna cite regs at me, Mister Duck Pyjamas?"

"They do not think that," he argued.

"For a forty-seven year-old man, you're very naive."

He frowned at the mention of his age, remembering the significant age gap between them. "Sarah—"

"You want this," she interrupted him, smoothing a thumb over his mouth. He tasted the acrid, herbal flavour of the cream on her skin. Even her fingers were soft... "I sure as hell do."

"But why?" _Shut up shut up stop talking shut __**up—**_

"Because you've been on my side from the beginning," she murmured. He decided he liked quiet, thoughtful Palmer. "You're not some drooling idiot who stares at my ass all day—you give a shit about me."

"That's not entirely true—"

"Oh?"

"I do stare at your ass a lot."

He finally was able to say something right, because she burst out laughing. "Kiss me, Tom."

Yes. This was good. He did as he was ordered, smoothing his fingers over her jaw and kissing her. She wrapped her arms around his neck—she _was_ as warm as he thought she would be—and melted into him.

His breath hitched in his throat when he felt her breasts press into his chest, and her nipples were poking into his skin, firm from the cold air of his room—and hopefully, arousal, too.

They shared a few simple, breathy kisses before Palmer's tongue caressed his bottom lip. He answered with his own, feeling her invade his mouth and pressed back, meeting blow for blow. He slid his hands down her sides and around her waist, gripping her hips. He pulled her closer and she him, her fingers digging lightly into his shoulders.

Already his heart was pounding hard against his ribs. Somehow this felt so _right, _and it sure as hell felt good. If it had to be anyone on this ship that'd he share his bed with, it only made sense that it would be Palmer; she was the closest friend he had, a trusted officer and companion. She was also the most honest person he'd met, with possibly the exception of Chyler, and if she said she wanted this, with him... it was enough to make his blood boil.

"Doesn't take much to get you going, does it?" She was talking. Which meant she had broken the kiss, which _also _meant he hadn't noticed until now and had quite possibly been sucking on air for a moment, too dazed to realise.

He also then noticed that he had a rather painful hard-on pressed into her hip. "You... there isn't much in the way of female company on the _Infinity."_

"I saw Ensign Sasha Petrov eyeing you up this morning," she murmured in his ear, nipping at his earlobe. "Particularly your arms. She'd fuck you if you looked at her sideways."

He tried not to let on that he was on the verge of a heart attack from her ministrations when he replied. "Are you jealous, Palmer?"

"She doesn't have your cock pressed against her stomach, so no, I'm not." She moved to kiss his throat. "Chair," she murmured into his neck, moving them towards his office chair.

He stumbled back and fell into it, and then she was straddling him and _holy fuck_ she was warm. Lasky took in the sight of Palmer sitting on his thighs, half-naked, with a lovely pink flush colouring her neck and collarbone. Her grin was that of a successful hunter finally trapping its prey, and it turned him on more than he thought physically possible.

He ran his hands up her waist, revelling in the feel of her firm skin, and moulded his hands over her breasts. She moaned and leaned into him, and the slopes of flesh moved softly in front of his face. On instinct, he pressed his lips to one, drawing the nipple into his mouth. She gasped above him, clutching his head and digging her nails into his scalp. Spurred on by her reaction, he massaged her other breast with his free hand, his other hand resting firmly on her exposed hip.

He'd almost forgotten how overwhelming it was, to be as wrapped up in another person as they were. His whole being was focused on Sarah—the sounds she made, the feel of her body rubbing against his, the smell of her skin and hair. The totality of it was enough to daze him... and drive him on. Palmer was grinding her hips into his, a playful mimic that made his fingers begin to pull on the bottom of her suit, eager to see the rest of her body.

"Sir, I've been told to infor—oh, uh..."

_Roland. _

It seemed that he would never catch a fucking break. Breathing heavily, he detached his mouth from Palmer's body, easing back into the chair. Sarah had gone completely rigid, her hands still twined in his hair. She looked shocked, as if only just realising what they'd been doing.

"What do you want, Roland?" he ground out.

"Um..." He caught a glimpse of the AI on his desk under Sarah's arm. Roland had scrunched his face up in a painful-looking frown. "It's... not urgent—"

"Tell me, or I'll have you decommissioned."

The AI fidgeted, an oddly human gesture. He must really be taken aback by the sight. "It's just that Spartan Tedra Grant has been admitted to the infirmary for a broken arm and her Fireteam leader is requesting to speak to Commander Palmer. I'd last seen her in your quarters, so..."

Palmer finally unwound her fingers from his head and let them fall limply into her lap. "I forgot Grant was injured," she said breathlessly, running a hand through her hair. Her breasts swayed with the movement, and it took all he had not to press his lips to them again.

He leaned back and looked at her. Her face was flushed and her lips were parted. The thought of her leaving now was physically painful. "Does that mean... you have to leave?"

"They'll suspect... debriefing doesn't take this long." She leaned forward, pressing her forehead to his and meeting his eyes. "And if this goes any further, I mean to take my time."

His fingers dug into her waist. "Keep saying stuff like that and I'll lock you in here."

"An intriguing thought," she whispered, and ghosted her lips across his. "I have to go, Tom."

"Okay," he muttered, feeling his heart sink in disappointment.

"Can you let go?"

"Oh." He managed to pry his hands off her body, and his arms fell uselessly to his sides. "Sorry."

She slipped off his lap and did her suit back up, hiding all of that lovely pink skin he'd been kissing a moment ago. She fixed her hair and took a deep breath, trying to will away the colour on her cheeks.

"I'll be back tonight," she promised, her brown eyes glinting. And then she was gone, his door swinging closed. He was too disappointed to even enjoy the sight of her walking away.

He breathed out deeply through his nose, trying to calm down. His heart was still beating raggedly, and his skin felt cold without her on top of him.

He glanced at the clock. 1752—there'd be a meal call soon. And Palmer usually ate with him in the officer galley.

_This will be interesting._

* * *

ODSTs and Spartans were the only people she knew of that laughed at the sight of their limbs being broken—likely because that meant that they themselves were still alive. Injury was lucky, really, as pain was the surest indicator of life. And sure enough, when she entered Grant's room, she was smiling like the Cheshire cat.

"Do I get a medal for breaking carbide inside my own body?" Grant said to Palmer in her lilting voice, grinning down at her cast. "Or do the hinge-heads get that honour for doing me the favour of destroying my arm?"

Sarah grinned back, relieved to see how cheerful the other woman was. "I'll have to contact brass and ask them to draft up a new medal for breaking something they said was indestructible."

Every member of Fireteam Majestic was in the infirmary, all of them still clad in armour. The effect it had on the doctors was akin to putting a fox in a chicken coop; they all fidgeted and didn't know where to look, clearly uncomfortable with the amount of bulky strength inhabiting the small room Tedra had been admitted to.

DeMarco stepped beside her. "Debriefing went well?" he asked quietly, with that small, ever-present smirk on his face.

Oh, fuck. _That._ She'd been too busy dry-humping Lasky to do much in the way of after-action paperwork. "As boring as ever," she lied, making sure to keep her voice level. "Roland said you needed to speak to me?"

"Your bio-suit's loose," he continued, ignoring what she said. She frowned, reaching behind her and felt at the seam—yep, one was open. Guess she should have taken more care in doing it up before leaving Tom's office.

"And now it's not," she replied, making sure to latch the open clasp together firmly. "Is that what you were wanting to speak to me about? My bio-suit?"

DeMarco's smile grew wider, shaking his head. "No, I just thought it was worth noting."

She had the strong urge to punch his big bald head, and silently congratulated herself when she managed to keep her hands by her sides. "Am I going to have grey hair by the time you say something meaningful, Fireteam Leader, or can I expect something relevant within the week?"

"I need a replacement while Grant is healing," he responded quickly, and to her glee he looked nervous. Good. He was still scared of her. He just needed a bit of a reminder once and a while about who was in charge. "Shouldn't be too long before she's back on her feet, but until then I can't have my Fireteam one Spartan short."

"There was a batch of newbies that came in yesterday. You can have your pick from there; I haven't gotten around to assigning them to fireteams yet."

DeMarco frowned. "I meant someone more experienced."

"Everyone more experienced is already in a fireteam," she said evenly. "And if you read the new Spartans' files, you'll be happy to know that most of them were ODSTs."

"ODSTs are not Spartans."

"Not until we show them how," she agreed. "Are you saying you're not willing to train new recruits, DeMarco?"

"No, I just—" He cut himself off and sighed. "This is the real deal. We're in hot zones all the time—I need someone I can trust."

"You can trust them. Have your pick of the new lot; that's the best you'll have until Grant is fit for duty." She raised a brow at him, the message clear.

He nodded, pursing his lips. "Yes, Commander." DeMarco was annoyed. Something she also took satisfaction from—it was nice to see him in a mood other than smug.

_Maybe I really am a colossal bitch if I enjoy making my Spartans uncomfortable,_ she mused. Well, that wasn't strictly true. She mostly only enjoyed putting DeMarco out of joint—the rest of his team and most other Spartans she liked to see happy.

"Grant," she began, turning away from DeMarco. "After you've cycled off your meds, I owe you a beer. You did good work down there."

Her pale skin flushed in embarrassment at the attention. "Thank you, ma'am. Although… It'll take more than _one_ beer to fix this," she added, waving her casted arm in Palmer's direction. "And none of that Earthy, North American piss you call beer, either. I'm talking real Arcadian stout."

Sarah laughed. "Guess I'll have to go searching for some 'real' beer. I'll be on the look out for the strong stuff."

"And if there isn't any, I'm sure the captain will be more than happy to order some," DeMarco muttered.

"What was that, Fireteam Leader?"

"Just that _Tom_ is wrapped around your little finger."

Her eyes narrowed. "You sound jealous, DeMarco."

"Not at all," he replied, looking like his smug self again. "Just—"

"—Worth noting, yes. I dearly await more of your observations aboard the _Infinity._ Go find a new recruit, now, before I pick one for you."

"Aye, ma'am." He somehow managed to sound arrogant while following the order, and she glared at his back as he left the room.

"He'll pick Merissa Tedley," Hoya commented.

"The blonde that came in yesterday?" Madsen asked.

"Hell yeah."

Palmer snorted. "I hope he does, too."

"Why?"

"She's as straight as a rainbow," Grant said, grinning. "She almost had a seizure in the female showers this morning from all the tits bouncing around. DeMarco doesn't know that, though."

Palmer was about to cut in, but her COM beeped. Ah, must be dinner time. She tossed a salute to the room. "Chow time for officers. I'll be off now. If you need anything, Grant, you have my permission to bother the hell out of Doctor Tran."

She grinned. "Noted, ma'am."

Sarah left the room, the sounds of snickering and gossiping increasing in volume behind her. It was nice, she thought, to exit the medbay for once without seeing one of her Spartans wrapped up in a body bag. Even nicer to see one so cheerful after an injury.

She headed out of the infirmary wing and walked out into the small tram station that ran the length of the ship. Jabbing at a few keys on a nearby terminal to call a tram, she leaned against the metal walls and waited.

It was dinner time. Which meant she'd be chowing down next to Lasky. The thought of seeing him again got her blood up immediately. She still hadn't totally shaken off the painful arousal she'd left his room with, and her lower belly ached with the lack of relief. Talking to DeMarco had certainly helped kill her steamy mood, but thinking of Tom again made it all come rushing back.

Nobody had ever touched her like that, so gently and so carefully, as if she were made of glass. She'd had fuckbuddies in the past, but it had all been rough and rushed, not much else besides relieving tension. Once or twice, something more meaningful than sex had stemmed from sleeping around, but those men were long dead.

Tom, though… she'd known him for almost five years, a staggering feat in her line of work. He'd always been kind to her, always trusted her judgement. She felt easy around him, and more often than not she found herself in his office or the lounge after hours, sharing her day and her thoughts with him, good or bad. And he _listened._ Didn't try to argue or pass judgement or come up with some grand answer to her problems, just sat and listened to her speak. And sometimes he'd tell her about his day, too, and she repaid him the same courtesy.

But it was fucked up that she wanted to fuck him. Wasn't it? He was seventeen years her senior, _and_ her CO. Not that frat regs were ever a real concern—ODSTs fucked each other like rabbits, since they counted time spent alive in hours, not years. But… this was different. Tom wasn't going anywhere and she didn't plan on dying on a shitty planet like Requiem, so for the foreseeable future they were to be in constant, _professional_ contact.

_Even more contact if you count unprofessional._ Did she want to spend that much time in his company? Talk his ear off during the day and ride him raw at night? Her gut reaction was a resounding, enthusiastic _oh yes please,_ but her rational mind was not so eager.

The tram arrived, interrupting her thoughts. She stepped towards it, happy to see that it was empty—no, not totally empty.

Soft brown eyes met hers when she entered. God dammit. She hadn't thought this through yet. And now he was sitting there, calm and quiet and handsome…

"Commander Palmer," he greeted, his voice only the tiniest bit strained. _Oh, don't give me that rank bullshit. You had your mouth all over me twenty minutes ago._

"Tom," she replied, emphasising his name. She sat down in the seat across from him, resting her elbows on her knees. "Going to dinner?" She keyed in the destination and the tram took off. Lasky frowned when it began to move.

"I was... about to go to the medbay, actually, and see Grant." He sat back, obviously uncomfortable with her proximity. _Good._ She also noticed that he'd calmed down considerably from the last time she'd seen him, all dazed and flushed and aroused.

_Must be nice to have a shower all to yourself to jerk off in._ Oh god, not a good mental image. Or rather, it was _too_ good of a mental image. Him hot and bothered and naked in the shower….

"I… assume she's doing well?" he continued when she sat there staring off into space.

_Only look at his face. _She waved her hand, making sure to keep her expression neutral. "Grant's fine. She's more than fine, actually; she's quite pleased with herself to be one of the first Spartans on _Infinity _to break a bone." She was losing it. She really needed to get laid. Or go for a _really _long run. Fantasising about _Tom Lasky_ was hovering towards the bottom of her list of things she thought she'd ever do in her lifetime. He was too old and too nice. She knew what to do with young and douchey—fuck them for a few fun nights and toss them on their asses when she got tired of listening to male ego bullshit. But nice? And _Lasky_ levels of nice? What the hell do you do with _that?_

_If you even __**think**_ _about the word marriage, Sarah Palmer, make sure to slam your head nice and good on the doorframe on the way out._

His frown deepened. "Are all Spartans insane, or is it just you and her?"

_Oh no, I'm the craziest for sure. _"Why?" she asked, lowering her voice and leaning forward. "Do you like insane, Tom?"

He coughed, looking away from her. "I…."

She got nothing more out of him than a pronoun, and after a minute of strained silence, she sighed. "Nothing happened between us; at least not while we're eating dinner in the mess. Afterwards, though…." She placed a hand on his knee. "We've got the whole night to talk about it." Talk. Well, she didn't plan on talking much. But Lasky did like to think shit to death, and he usually had verbal diarrhea when that happened if she managed to hit the right note. Which she almost always did. He was quirky, but she knew how to speak his lingo. She also knew how to shut him up, something of a newly acquired skill, since it involved taking off her clothes and shoving her breasts into his face.

He froze at her touch, but he didn't pull away. "Sounds like a plan," he said evenly, coughing again.

"How's your skin, by the way? I _was _in your room for something else besides making out with you," she said, grinning. Oh yes, it was fun to watch him go dry in the mouth and struggle for words.

He flushed a lovely shade of crimson. "It's… it's fine now, mostly. Thanks."

"Good," she responded, standing up as the tram came to a stop. "Wouldn't want you to be itchy in bed."

* * *

He had somehow managed to fuck up fucking up, a feat he wasn't aware was possible.

He felt Palmer's eyes drill into the side of his head as he responded to Bradley's question. "Yes, the alarms haven't been tested in a while, so I asked Roland to run them tonight. Make sure you're ready to run your designated crew through the drills."

"When will they go off?" Sarah asked, raising a brow.

"Twenty-three hundred," he responded, trying not to look too forlorn. Yes, he _had _to have picked _this_ night to run drills, when Palmer had promised to continue their little tryst in his quarters after-hours. And he couldn't very well cancel them now. _Because you made sure Roland told every fucking officer on _Infinity, _didn't you?_

"Bah," Priselkov muttered. "I wasn't planning on sleeping anyway."

Sarah gave him a significant look that screamed _and neither were we._

He cleared his throat loudly, trying to ignore Palmer beside him. "Did, ah, did any of you have any issues with crewmen this past week?" Maybe if he talked about paperwork she'd lose interest in looking at him and turn back to her food.

The officers at the table glanced at each other. "Nothing significant, I don't think. Why?" Bradley asked.

"It's those damn crewmen reports I have to fill out. I barely see a sixth of the crew in a day, but I have to write up reports on everyone for 'better conflict resolution'," he said, poking at his meal. He was too uncomfortable and too excited with Sarah sitting next to him to be hungry. Her thigh would brush his every so often and it took all he had not to jump out of his seat.

"When's it due?"

"Few weeks ago," he said, smiling faintly. "I've barely made any headway."

Bradley frowned. "Pass a few my way, then, and I'll see what I can do."

His eyes widened. "Really?"

"Yeah. I won't be much help outside of Decks E and F, but any crew assigned there I see regularly. Shouldn't be too hard."

"Me as well," Priselkov cut in. "I've got some room for paperwork."

"I can fill out the Spartans' files," Sarah added. "Threatening them all with paperwork might make them more cooperative, anyway."

"You mean DeMarco?" he asked, grinning.

"Mostly him. But a few others could stand to be run through some conflict resolution paperwork. It'll scare the newbies, too."

"Thank you," he said to the table. "Really. Jesus, you just got rid of a few months work for me."

The rest of the meal went on rather plainly. The table talked about mundane things, requiring only the occasional nod or question from him. He _tried_ to eat, he really did, but his stomach was in knots and the sight of his food only conjured a mild distaste from him.

He was torn between relief and disappointment that drills would go on tonight. Relieved because he really should not be sleeping with a subordinate seventeen years his junior, and disappointed because he _really_ wanted to. It'd been so long since he'd spent time in someone else's bed, or they his, and the small taste of it made him want it all the more. And it was _Palmer,_ one of the few people he could count on to always give him an honest opinion. She didn't play politics or try to humor him—she told him what was what, whether he wanted to hear the truth or not. As he rose in rank, that trait became increasingly scarce. It had been one of the many reasons that she'd quickly become his closest friend aboard the ship, maybe even _the_ closest friend he had anywhere.

And now, well… his cock was doing a great deal of thinking for him. And the hand she currently had on his knee under the table was _not_ helping.

When the meal was over, she gave him a parting look, equal parts excited and regretful, and left for Spartan Town. And he, he went to his bunk. Alone. And waited for the alarms to go off, sitting in his office chair and trying desperately not to picture her naked.

* * *

**AN:** More smut to come! Just need to get some plot out of the way first.


	4. Spartans Don't Die

**Chapter Four - Spartans Don't Die  
**

She'd told herself every day that she would not, _could not_ die on Requiem. She had too much responsibility on her shoulders, too much shit left to do. And a shithole like _Requiem?_ Hell no. When she died, it would be somewhere that mattered, somewhere where her death would make a difference. She would not be another name on a casualty list while _Infinity _still floated above the planet looking for Forerunner tech.

And still she kept telling herself that, with a hand to her side as she felt blood leak from her body. A dead elite covered her legs and waist, trapping her in the dirt, and the knife it'd managed to wedge between the plates of her armour lay in its limp hand.

She was in a bad spot, she knew. She'd been scouting for her Spartans, trying to gauge where the enemy was, when the fucker now lying on top of her had snuck up behind her with one of those pussy active camo shields they used and jammed a knife into her. She'd killed it before it could make any noise, but now she was trapped against a rock and far away from her Spartans. Palmer could radio them, but the elites would track the signal and attack them back at home base—the original plan had been to scout and run back with intel, but now… now she was stuck there. And she would not risk so many lives for her own.

There was a lot of blood. A dark purple fluid covered her armour and gear from the elite, and a dark crimson, with streaks of black, poured from the wound. Her stomach was punctured, that much she could tell from the colour of the blood, and the automatic bio-foam injectors only acted to extend her life, not fix the injury. Neither did it totally clot the stab wound, but it was enough to spare her some time. An hour, she ball-parked. No time at all.

She tried to kick at the elite, fury filling her at the sudden thought of dying. She couldn't _die_, not yet. Her life was far too busy for her to die now. She had to train the new batch of Spartans that had arrived last week, file reports, finish her equipment requisition forms… and fuck Tom.

_Tom._ Jesus, no, she _really _couldn't die. He'd told her about all the people he'd lost, the loved ones he'd watch die. He was the closest thing she had to family for billions of miles in any direction, and she knew the same was true for him, too.

She managed to get her knee moving under the stupid _fucking _alien that had the gall to _stab_ her, and with a great deal of satisfaction and pain she shoved her foot into its split-lipped face. She let out a sob from the pain as she pushed against its weight, biting the inside of her cheek until she tasted copper. She felt the blood running out of her side leak out at a greater force with the strain, but she forged on. If this elite was going to be shipped back to its family, or whatever these assholes had, he was going to look as ugly as fucking possible.

"Piece of shit," she muttered, the cursing making her feel better. She rammed her foot into its mouth, eventually jostling it enough to roll it off her other leg. The blood rushed back painfully into her thighs and calves, and pins and needles erupted in her entire lower body. "I hope you have a batch of ugly fucking worm children and an ugly fucking worm wif—" She coughed from talking, and spit into the dirt. Streaks of blood coloured her spit. _I'm fucked._ "—and they all get fucking _glassed _by my _fucking _Spartans, you _fucking _split-lip."

As she heard bones break under her foot from repeatedly kicking it in the head, the force shook the limp body enough to shake the equipment clinging to its armour. She saw UNSC dog tags fall out of a pocket, likely collected from fallen marines and ODSTs and Spartans, along with several grenades, its camo pod, and a few other bits of alien gear.

And… a tube of cream. What the fuck?

She fell onto her side and reached out the hand not holding her ribs, grabbing the tube out of the dust. She struggled for a few minutes to sit back up, slowly inching herself back into a sitting position. Palmer finally managed to lean against the rock behind her again, breathing heavily. Every breath pulled on the wound, shooting white-hot pain up her ribs and into her abdomen, and the beat of her heart was a painful reminder that she was still very much alive. A cold sweat had broken out on her forehead, but she tried to focus on the medical tube in her hand.

It was Tom's cream, the shit he put on his blisters. It was almost empty, and she popped the cap open.

"Ew, fuck." Saliva coated the inside of the cap. The elite had been _eating_ this shit?

She untwisted the entire cap and threw it away, looking inside. Only a bit left, clinging to the sides of the bottle. Sarah grabbed her helmet with one hand and released the air-tight clamp, setting it next to her on the ground. The air on Requiem was dry, but the hot wind felt good on her face. She brought the tube to her nose and inhaled. Beyond the faint whiff of hinge-head spit, she could smell the acrid, herbal flavour of the cream. It smelled like Tom.

"Tom," she whispered, looking at the tube. "No wonder they keep… shooting down supply drops." She swallowed hard around the growing lump in her throat, wincing. Talking hurt even more than breathing.

She inhaled again, not caring how ridiculous she felt. She could remember his face, embarrassed that she knew about something so human and vulnerable. Embarrassed to be exposed in front of her.

_I'm so sorry._ The lump in her throat made it difficult to breathe. She wouldn't be there to share a drink with him on the anniversary of Cadmon's death next Tuesday, or play a few rounds of video games in the lounge after-hours and kick his ass, or lend him an ear to vent to when he was fed up with trying to solve the problems of seventeen thousand souls every day. He'd have no one, and he sure as hell wouldn't do something as selfish as _burden_ another human being with his own troubles. The only way she ever forced anything out of him was with a stiff drink and a threatening punch in the arm. He'd just bury it and keep moving.

She curled in on herself from the pain. Why? Why fucking _now? Why?_ Any other day, any other time than this. _No atheists in the trenches, huh? Well __**fuck**_ _whoever or whatever wants me dead. Jesus, Buddha, Hades—suck a fat one, all of you. _She wouldn't beg. She hadn't begged before and she sure as hell didn't intend to start. Those fuckers in the clouds knew who she was—buttering them up with a few nicey-nice prayers minutes before death wouldn't change her fate now.

Her vision began to fade, and her mind screamed in defiance. She needed more time, just an hour more, or any time at all…. Why was it so dark? Is this what death looks like?

No, her eyes were open. She could still see, couldn't she? Was she passing out? _Sarah Palmer, you do __**not**_ _faint. Spartans never faint._

Her ears flooded with the sound of whirring. Well, maybe she was fainting. Or dying. Or hallucinating. _If I am seeing things, let me see something nice before I leave. Chocolate cake, or a big fluffy bed, or Tom…._

The wind had picked up, and the whirring noise grew so loud in her ears that it drowned out the sound of her harsh breathing. Maybe she was having a stroke or something. _Ha! How hilarious would that be? Stabbed in the gut, and Sarah Palmer dies of a stroke._

God, the fucking wind. A violent shudder racked through her body, and she felt herself topple over into the dirt. The sand stuck to her cheek from the cold sweat clinging to her skin, and the grit peppered her lips. She tasted the earth, wheezing out shallow breathes, and pulled the tube of cream to her field of view.

"Sarah?"

Good, onto the hallucination stage of dying. She concentrated on the smell of the cream, hoping it would amplify the sound of Lasky's voice. She tried to speak his name, but her mouth only moved in a soundless whisper.

"Commander Palmer?"

_No, no, call me Sarah… I like the way you say my name. _"Tom," she forced out, barely able to hear her own voice. What the fuck was with the wind? It was blowing dirt into her face, and it blocked the smell of the cream.

She felt fingers on her skin, at her neck. She tried to look at him, but she couldn't move her head. It weighed too much.

Another hand touched hers, the one holding the tube. She felt it being removed from her grip and she tried to tighten her fingers.

"No," she croaked. "No, Tom…."

"She's alive! Miller, Carmichael, help me with her!"

No, no, no. She didn't want to dream about Miller, for fuck sakes! _Lasky. Nerdy, blister-y Lasky. Preferably with no clothing. Or in his ducky pants. Goddamn, you're pathetic, Palmer._

No! Not the lotion! She didn't have it anymore, someone took it away from her. An elite? Fucking Covenant. Now she couldn't picture his face anymore. _God, _was there a fucking hurricane? Why was the wind so brutal? She felt sand grind against her teeth.

Her face left the hot sand, and she felt weightless. _Yep, I'm dead now. _It was dark, and windy, and hot. Maybe she was in Hell already. _Thinking about shithead Miller for all eternity sounds like Hell, _she reasoned. No more Lasky or ducks or cream… how sad.

_Sorry, Tom. I really am._

* * *

His bottom lip had been completely stripped of its first few layers of skin before he finally saw the Pelican touch down in the landing bay. He tried his best not to bolt towards it like a maniac, keeping an even, steady gait as he headed for the bird. The calm walk was slowly killing him.

Palmer had told him she hated it when he watched the live feed from her helmet when she was in the field. It did little to calm his nerves, and the one time he'd called for reinforcements to help her when he thought her Fireteam had gotten too bogged down with enemies, she'd yelled at him for a good two hours afterwards.

_You have no power on Requiem, _she'd barked. _I call the shots, I make the choices to call for backup, not you. My Spartans follow __**me.**_ Which he understood—undermining her command by making decisions for her would not do, and she was more than capable of gauging a dicey situation.

But this time was different.

He arrived at the Pelican just in time to see Miller, Carmichael and Cameron unload her from the bird, strapped into a gurney.

"Is she—"

"Alive, sir. Medical here yet?"

He nodded, not taking his eyes off her. "Two doctors, and the tram is waiting to take her to the infirmary."

Miller nodded and motioned for the other two to push her towards the tram system. He had to jog to keep pace with them, but made sure to stick close to her side.

She wasn't unconscious, but neither was she awake. He saw her eyes move restlessly under half-closed lids, unseeing and glazed with pain. Her arms were strapped to her sides, and one was slathered with crimson. She was a mess of blood and dirt and sweat, and the sight made his heart clench painfully in his chest. _Please don't die._

They boarded the tram with the doctors, who shoved him aside as respectfully as they could and got to work stabilising her. He stood there watching beside the other Spartans, trying to bury the growing panic in his belly when he heard the two doctors barking orders at one another.

"She managed to stab the elite with its own blade and then cave its head in with her foot," Miller said next to him, sounding both impressed and somewhat afraid. "If _Palmer_ doesn't survive this... well, I think we're all fucked, sir. Pardon the language."

"She'll live," he said, more harshly than he intended, and Miller straightened.

"I'm sure she will too, sir."

God, there was a lot of blood. Both alien and human, mixing together in a dark grime on the doctor's arms. They had managed to stop the bleeding, or so it seemed, but he knew she had internal injuries, too.

"Captain?"

He looked at doctor Tran, trying not to think too hard. "What is it?"

"She'll make it to medical, but she has to go into surgery straight away."

"Techs are waiting in the infirmary," he replied, answering the unasked question. "They'll get her armour off as quick as they can."

How odd it was, he thought, for Spartans to live in their gear but not be allowed to remove or clean it. He'd seen the Master Chief take care of his armour, handling it with a gentle reverence he didn't know the man was capable of. Another difference between the different generations of Spartans that he didn't know if it made the IIs better or worse than the IVs.

There was a movement on the gurney, and an odd gurgle. "Tom," he realised she was saying, and he quickly moved to her side.

Her head rolled in his direction, her eyes open enough to glare at him. "Piece of shit," she breathed, her lips twitching.

He suppressed a rather hysteric laugh. "I couldn't help myself. Lucky that I watched this time, too."

"Lucky... nothing. Spartans don't die," she managed, her fingers groping for the hand at his side. He slid his palm into hers, covered in dirt and blood. "At least... not me."

"I'm glad," he whispered. He sat down next to her, feeling an odd wave of nostalgia. When he saw her cough and grimace in pain, Chyler's face came to mind. It brought on another bout of panic, and he gripped her hand more tightly. He didn't want to watch another good person die, especially not Palmer.

Her face contorted into a wince, as if she had a horrible taste in her mouth. Her hair, now untangled from its usually tight ponytail, fell into her eyes. Not caring that there were half a dozen other people in the room, he brushed the stray strands away from her face, a soft tenderness coming over him. Even covered in muck, injured and half-awake, she still managed to glare at him for helping her. He smiled at her. No, he would not add her dog tags to his chain today. She was a bit too stubborn to let that happen.

* * *

Despite his best efforts, he fell asleep waiting. An odd thing for him, since stress usually kept him awake for nights on end, but his body had decided to shut down and he could only sit back and enjoy the momentary rest. It passed the time more quickly, at least.

It was irresponsible of him to camp out in the infirmary, dozing against a wall. He had a few day's worth of worked backlogged, and he should be on the bridge in case there was a problem—and there was _always_ a problem, always something he had to mediate or fix or respond to. If anything, he was surprised there weren't _more _problems he needed to attend to on a vessel of seventeen thousand people.

When a doctor shook him gently on the shoulder to wake up, he saw that he'd slept deep into third shift—three in the morning for Earth time. Even the other Spartans had retired to their beds. A wise decision, really.

Lasky hauled himself up off the floor, wincing at the popping joint in his knee. He was definitely not sixteen anymore.

"How is she?" he asked immediately, rubbing his knee. Tran looked exhausted, and his glasses were skewed at an odd angle on his wrinkled face.

"The elite managed to puncture her stomach and graze her lung and kidney—a few centimetres up, and the stab would have killed her before she made it back here. There's quite a bit of damage, and we've replaced some tissue, but—" his sentence trailed off as he yawned. "But… she's fine. She'll have to be on a liquid diet for about a week until her stomach is no longer in shock, which I'm sure she won't be pleased about." The old man's mouth twitched at the thought.

"Is she awake?"

"If she was, you'd know. You can go see her now, if you'd like. Looks like you've been waiting awhile."

His face flushed. Maybe Sarah was right—did half the ship really think they were sleeping together? His distaste for gossip must have left him out of the loop, because Tran gave him a knowing look before heading towards the tiny coffee machine in the office space of the infirmary.

He pushed inside Sarah's room, immediately assaulted by the smell of blood masked with cleaning alcohol and the sound of medical equipment beeping and wheezing. He headed straight for her bed, and pulled a plastic chair under him before sitting down beside her.

They'd cleaned the blood and dirt off of her, and her hair had been restored to a semi-tidy state. She looked pale and uncomfortable, her mouth set in a frown even as she slept. Tom took her hand, noticing again how warm her skin always was. He ran fingers over her calloused palm, letting the sounds of the monitors beside him fade away.

He had discovered two things today, and only now had the materialized into actual thoughts, sitting beside her. One, he was painfully in love with the woman sleeping on the hospital bed in front of him, and two, he wanted to pursue the first revelation with unprofessional abandon. He would not hide his feelings away like he had with Chyler, only to watch her die as he finally had the courage to let the spark he felt grow.

Both of those thoughts made him grin like an idiot, safe to let his mouth tug ear-to-ear in the privacy of Sarah's room. He'd thought the days of fevered, passionate love had been lost with youth, not that he'd ever really experienced it to begin with, but what he felt now was strong and steady and frightening. He'd been unsure before, concerned with the backlash and complications of them being together, but now he realised he didn't give a fuck. She was one of the few true friends left to him, and he wasn't about to let military propriety get in the way.

"Win the lottery?"

His head snapped up, and he saw Sarah eyeing him with amusement. "What?"

"You've got a giant grin on your face," she explained.

"Oh," he muttered, and wiped his mouth, as if trying to physically remove it. "How… how are you feeling?" _So much for bold declarations of love,_ he thought.

"Better than I was," she admitted, and struggled to sit up. He tried to help, to which she only responded with a dangerous glare, and settled back down onto the lumpy mass of pillows behind her a moment later. She let out a sharp breath from the movement, a hand moving to her wounded side in reflex.

"You shouldn—"

"I know, but lying down is uncomfortable." She replaced her hand in his, and gave him a small smile. "You don't look good."

"I fell asleep on the floor," he muttered, and Sarah's grin grew.

"Oh yeah?" she prodded. She looked extremely pleased with herself.

"Yeah," he said seriously. "You're one of the last friends I've got. I needed to know how you were doing."

"You have more friends than you think you do. People like you, Tom."

"Even so," he said, looking down at their hands. "I was… scared."

"The hinge-head that stuck me with his knife," she began, squeezing his fingers. "He had a tube of your cream."

Of all the things he could imagined she'd say, that was not one of them. "What? Why?"

"Apparently they like the taste of it, for whatever fucking reason," she said, shrugging her shoulders and then grimacing. "Guess that's another reason for them to shoot down supply lines. But… it made me think of you. Think of Cadmon's anniversary coming up, and how worried you always look, and those stupid PJs you own," she added, smiling at him. "It made me want to come back to _Infinity,_ and not in a body bag." She frowned, as if confused where the tender words had come from. "That, and I have too much goddamn paperwork to fill out to just up and die."

An impressive compliment from Palmer. It eased the worry in his chest. "Well, keep thinking that. If it brings you back, you can think about ducks all day long."

"Maybe, but I prefer you," she teased. "Blisters and ducks and all."

Not being able to help himself, he leaned in to kiss her. It was a simple one, not frenzied or steamy or desperate—just a nice kiss. When he pulled away, Palmer gave him another smile, and they stayed like that until he fell asleep in the chair, lulled by the sound of her soft breathing.


	5. But They Do Run

**AN:** Yay, more plot! There will be smut soon, I promise. For now, enjoy some conflict.

* * *

**Chapter Five - But They Do Run  
**

Cadmon had been a near-inexhaustible source of wisdom for him when they were growing up—his older brother knew everything, or at least as far as Tom could remember. Cadmon always had an explanation for something, no matter what Tom asked, and it had always seemed to make sense to him.

Especially when it came to girls. Cadmon knew how to talk to them and how to make them laugh, and often had a number of them trailing his heels wherever he went. Tom's attempts at replicating his brother's easy charm and confidence had mostly ended in confused failure, but after his brother died, he'd managed well enough on his own. At the age he was now, the struggle to understand the opposite sex had, for the most part, run its course, leaving him with a fairly comfortable approach to women.

And yet he still could not figure out why Sarah was ignoring him.

It had gone so well in the beginning. They'd been good friends to start with, and after their painfully brief interlude in his quarters she'd been flirty and encouraging. Then when she'd been injured, he'd been all but sure that things had been settled in some unspoken terms, or at least that's what he'd seen in her eyes during their conversation in the infirmary, especially after another brief kiss. But once she'd recovered, it was straight to "aye aye"s and "yes sir"s and _nothing _else. No small talk, no good morning or good night, no playing Xbox off-duty, and certainly no sex. He was at a loss.

He tried talking to her, but she had come to know his schedule so well by now that she also knew when to avoid him. The last time he saw her was two days ago, and that was from across the bridge. Once she caught sight of him she retreated back to Spartan Town and ran her soldiers through intensive drills. And the only reason he _knew_ that was because he'd overheard them complaining.

"Commander's got a bug up her butt," Grant had muttered, rubbing her shoulder. "Twice as many drills in a day, and did you see the way she bit Carmichael's head off this morning when he asked her to slow down? 'Covies don't slow down'," she mocked, doing a terrible imitation of a North American accent. "'And neither do Spartans.'"

"She needs to get laid," Madsen agreed, his face contorted in a frown. "Been worse ever since she took that stab from an elite."

"Not satisfied with the knife, I suppose."

"She probably consumes the bodies of whoever she sleeps with, anyways. Like a praying mantis," Madsen added, curling his arms into pincers.

"The hell's a prang-mantis?"

"Seriously? It's a bug from Earth, you fucking foreigner. It eats whatever it fucks afterwards."

"Last I checked, you're not from Earth either, jackass."

"Least I know what…."

He'd tuned out by that point, too absorbed with the information he'd just heard to care much about Earth's fauna. So Palmer _was_ acting differently. A good thing, in a way. At least he wasn't just imagining it.

However, that still didn't solve his problem. They been on _very_ good terms since he'd last checked. He wondered if she was angry with him, but he had no clue why she would be.

"Uh, sir?"

"What, Roland?"

"The... requisition forms," he explained, looking pointedly at the files on Lasky's desk.

"What about them?"

"You've been staring at them for twelve minutes and haven't moved or done anything. We still have the monthly audit to go through, and the shore-leave requests from last week."

"I need a goddamn secretary," he muttered, clicking his pen against the desk. Maybe more coffee would solve the problem.

"You seem distracted, Lasky."

"I'm fine."

"The exact same response Commander Palmer gave me when I voiced a similar observation."

He shot a look at the AI's avatar. "Are you trying to be funny, Roland?"

"I always strive for levity, sir, even when no one else shares my appreciation for it. I feel very much to be the proverbial cheese standing alone." As if to prove his comment, he straightened on his tiny pedestal.

"I'm not in the mood."

"So I've said, Captain."

He reached over and shut Roland's monitor off, getting some satisfaction out of watching the yellow bombardier's face scrunch up in annoyance before flickering and winking out of existence.

"Remember those conflict resolution forms you filled out?" Roland's voice echoed in his room, emanating somewhere from a speaker in the wall. "Is this a 'do what I say, not what I do' scenario, or are you just a practiced hypocrite?"

"And do you remember that I have access to your audio output?"

"I believe that the truth should never be silen—no no no, wait! Captain—"

"What?" he barked, freezing in his half-standing position.

"All joking aside, I am concerned."

"Really?" he replied sarcastically, trying not to get too irritated. Roland usually did have good intentions, despite being extremely annoying at times.

_But you know what they say about good intentions._ Boy, did he know it.

"Of course. I've been tracking your bio-readouts, as well as Palmer's, and you both have abnormally high blood pressure and cortisol levels in your systems. More so than normal, anyway."

"And?" he prompted, sitting back down.

"Despite recent threats to smother my right to free speech, I do care about your welfare. Dropping dead of a heart attack wouldn't do the _Infinity _any favours, and I don't believe Palmer's place can be adequately filled by another Spartan."

He sat back in his seat, rubbing his eyes. "So do you have any sage advice for me?"

"You both seemed... close," Roland said carefully. "And they do say that sex is good for high blood pres—"

"So I've heard," he interrupted, not wanting to have The Talk with his warship's AI at the moment. "The problem is Sarah won't even give me the time of day, let alone her bed."

"She seems angry with you."

"Did she say something?" Maybe a discussion with Roland wouldn't end in frustration for once. The man could be infuriatingly irreverent when he wanted to be.

"Just that she said you were stupid."

"Lovely," he muttered. "Why, might I ask?"

"I should clarify; she didn't say you specifically were stupid, only that the idea of being in a relationship with you outside of a professional capacity was stupid."

"She was the one who crawled into my lap and took her top off," he bit back, more to himself than Roland.

"Indeed. However, she seems to be taking out her aggression on her Spartans through rigorous exercise. At least she's doing it in a productive way and not just sitting aro—" Roland trailed off when he saw Lasky glare at the wall, clearly directed at him.

"Well, no more sitting around, then." He shoved up from his chair, straightening his jacket and scratching his collarbone. It bothered him that every time he put on blister cream now he remembered her grinding into him and came down with a nasty case of blue balls. "I'll go talk to her right now. Where is she?"

"Spartan Town. She appears to be stepping out of her armour; her shift has almost ended."

"Perfect."

* * *

She was over him.

Actually, no, wait; she wasn't. Because to be _over _someone meant she had to have feelings for them in the first place. Which she certainly had none of.

She'd been in for one hell of a reality check ever since that damn elite had stabbed her on Requiem. Besides getting a cool scar, she also came into a wonderful nugget of wisdom; a warship was no place for extra-curricular feelings or activity. Any one of them could die in an instant, or get re-located or promoted or _something_ would change, and then they'd only be opening themselves to heartbreak and misery.

She just had to find someone to fuck and then all would be well in the world. Lasky was too complicated, too many strings attached. Not an ideal match, not for a military way of life. Besides, she could be sure to find someone aching to get some action on a naval vessel no problem. _If they don't run screaming in the opposite direction first._

Tom was hurt now, probably, but that wasn't her problem. It'd been a mistake to get that close in the first place—any closer would be crossing into dangerous territory. He'd get over it. When he did, they could go back to being friends. _Just _friends. Until then, she'd keep her distance and let him lick his wounds in peace.

She closed her eyes as she felt the armour techs spin her around, unlatching her gear. It was calming, getting twirled around in the fancy dismantling machine the techs used, almost like a ritual. Having someone else take off her sweaty, heavy gear at the end of the day was the closest thing to luxury available in the UNSC, besides maybe private quarters and a shower to herself. They'd offered her such accommodations when she'd been made Commander, but she'd turned them down. If she fought and trained beside her Spartans, she'd sleep and eat and shower next to them, too. It would make them feel more comfortable around her if they could see her in a more human light. God knows she needed all the help she could get in that department.

She felt herself being returned to an upright position all too soon, her armour now completely off and leaving her in the standard Spartan combat-readiness suit. Time for a shower.

"Thanks," she tossed to the techs, stepping down and heading for the Spartan quarters. the others gave her a wide berth, wider than normal, and she resisted the urge to frown. She was being overly bitchy, she knew, but there was no other outlet for her besides training, and her Spartans would only benefit from the harder exercise. Harmless, if a bit off-putting.

_God, I seriously need to get fucking laid. If it doesn't happen soon I might even start eyeing up DeMarco. Hopefully I die before that day should come. _Maybe a female Spartan would serve her better; they seemed to be less afraid of her. Certainly not her first choice, but during her ODST days if there wasn't a convenient dick around, a woman would do well enough for some stress relief. More work on her end, though. She needed something _simple_, for once. Nothing was ever simple.

_Maybe the civilian sector has a prostitute or two. I heard a few crewmen talking about it earli—_

Well. Fuck.

She stopped dead when she saw him approaching her. Calm and cool and dressed in the Captain's uniform that looked a million times better on him than it ever did on Del Rio. When the call echoed for an officer on deck he didn't wave away the salutes or immediately call everyone to rest. He was on a mission today, and she could take a guess as to what _that _was about.

"Commander Palmer," he greeted, coming to a stop a few feet away. Professional, yet warm. _Why are you so much better at this than I am?_ "I need to speak with you."

"I was just heading to the showers."

"Now," he responded, his voice hardening. Chocolate brown eyes held a warning. No getting out of this one now.

"Fine. What is it, Captain?"

"Privately, Commander. This way." He turned and began walking back the way he'd come, not bothering to see if she followed. Because she would follow, or else face insubordination charges. _Clever fucker. _So she followed him like a lost puppy, trying to hold onto some semblance of a professional air.

He stopped near an empty armour pod a minute later, leaning against the railing overlooking the gyms. They were out of earshot from techs and crewmen and soldiers. To her surprise, she felt her stomach flutter with anxiety like she was a fifteen year-old idiot again standing next to her latest crush.

"Sarah," he started, still sounding professional. His eyes, however, said something else entirely. _Lovely brown eyes… _"What's wrong?"

"Nothing, sir." The words tasted awful on her tongue, but it was the only answer she would give him. The only answer she _could_ give him.

"Don't," he said instantly, actually wincing at her words. "Drop the act. Tell me the truth."

"Nothing is the matter, _Tom."_

"Then why are you avoiding me? Why are you running your Spartans into the ground with training all of a sudden? We aren't active as of right now; you're just scouting and gathering tech. Something's the matter."

"I just want to make sure they're ready," she replied, trying not to sound strained. It was difficult to be near him, more so than she thought. And avoiding him all week had only made the compulsion to touch him even greater. He looked wounded, leaning against the railing, and she was the cause of it. "And… I've been busy."

"I don't believe you." His voice was hard now.

"That's not my problem."

He shoved off of the metal railing. "Stop with the bullshit, okay? Why are you acting like this? What the hell happened?"

"Do I owe you something?" she snarled. "What was it that you got in your head that I have to report every little thing to you now that you're captain?"

"An explanation would be nice!" he barked, fidgeting in his uniform. More blisters. And only she knew about them. It made her incredibly sad for some reason.

"For what?"

"For trying to fuck me," he hissed, his voice lowering to a whisper. "And the flirting—hell, we'd be sleeping together already if I hadn't called for the sirens to be tested that night. And _then _you barely speak to me all of a sudden. I want to know why."

"There's nothing to explain. I've lost interest, Tom."

"_What?"_ She'd never seen him this angry. She hadn't known he was _capable _of getting this angry; Lasky was all about calm and logic and analysing. Exploding in rage wasn't his MO. "You can't just—just pretend to care and then fuck off for—for no reason!" He was having trouble forming sentences. Yeah, he was pissed.

"Well I did!" she barked. "It's against regs anyw—"

"No, don't," he interrupted. "Don't give me that load of shit. This is _not_ about regs."

"No, it isn't," she agreed. "It's just another point in my favour. We're nothing more than friends, Lasky."

"Then just tell me _why._ If you don't—I don't care if you don't want to—" he trailed off, his mouth moving soundlessly, searching for words. "I just want to know why."

Oh, he looked so sad and hurt. He probably didn't know what the sight did to her, but it didn't matter either way. She'd just have to switch to the only tactic she knew of, or this would end with her trying to rip his clothes off. _Which would be bad. Well, it would be really, really good, and then bad._ "Why would I want to sleep with you?"

"What?" _Don't say it._

"You're old and greying and covered in blisters. Why would I want to sleep with you?"

As soon as the words left her mouth her tongue curled up, as if trying to bid them back inside before he could properly hear them. His face closed off with pain before a wall of impassiveness was thrown up, something so unlike him it made her feel sick. He shook his head and set his jaw, moving away from her. "Fine," he muttered, so low she could barely hear it. He turned away, shoulders abnormally straight. His hands were closed fists at his sides, but she could see them shaking.

She collapsed against the railing. She'd hurt him more than she thought possible, but it was for the best. Telling him the truth would only urge him to convince her otherwise, and it _would _work on her. Then they'd get close, closer than she'd ever let anyone else, and then something would happen and either Tom or her would be left stranded alone. She wouldn't be able to bear it. Tom hating her would be so much easier.

Because she was over him, of course.


	6. Axios

**AN:** I hadn't meant for this one to be like 5k words, but it somehow turned into a word monster. Welp, happy reading!

* * *

**Chapter Six - Axios  
**

No matter how many times he went into cryo, waking up was never dignified or pleasant. It was a great leveller in the military—it didn't matter who you were or how important you might be, everyone fresh out of the freezer woke up naked, shivering, and vomiting.

His experience was no different. Lasky collapsed on the grate floor when the hood opened on his pod, hearing officers do the same beside him. For an uncomfortable moment he couldn't breathe, until his whole stomach lurched and he threw up the cryo-inhalant that tasted like citrus and snot. It slid through the grates underneath him, streaked with pink. He closed his eyes, feeling his body convulse in a shudder. Blisters were forming in his throat already. He was going to have a bad day today. Roland usually woke him up more gradually than most personnel, rather than just shutting off the morphine drip and ejecting him out of his pod straight away. It allowed his body to adapt better, but that also meant he had newly-forming blisters when he woke up.

He threw up again, only bile this time, and his throat was lit with a burning fire. He shuddered again, the ship's air cold on his damp skin. Melting ice dripped from his hair and dewed on the floor, mixing in with the various fluids his body had vomited onto the ground. He frowned, moving away from the pool of bile on his hands and knees.

_Infinity _had been called back to Earth. Tune-ups to the ship, which were still not complete from both the first and second battles of Requiem, and the rotation of a few thousand crew members, were to be conducted while docked on Earth. Which meant cryo for almost everyone, including him.

A wave of dry, painful heat washed over his body, his skin feeling scaly and unpleasantly dried out. He heard the others getting up on either side of him, quickly recovering from cryo. He had been able to do that early in his career, but not now.

He tried to move, but his bones felt heavy and his muscles weak. His stomach lurched and he curled up, hoping desperately that he didn't throw up again. The skin of his throat was raw, and he tasted copper in his mouth.

"Lasky." A hand on his shoulder. He recognized the voice of Doctor Tran, one of the medical staff who volunteered to stay out of cryo for the journey. "Can you breathe?"

"Yeah," he rasped, swallowing. "Yeah."

"How are you feeling? Here, sit up." The man grabbed his arm with a surprisingly strong grip, but he shrugged the doctor off.

"It's alright—I'm okay."

"Then stand up and head for the showers," Tran replied, still insistent on getting him upright. He relented, resting his shoulders against his cryo pod.

"I'm fine," he repeated, wiping his mouth. "I'll be fine."

"You look pale."

"I haven't seen a real sun in a while."

"Don't be stubborn," Tran chided, using a datapad to scan him. He frowned at the results. "You're getting blisters internally now. Amazing how fast your body reacts…." A moment of scientific observation took over the doctor. "It's immediate now, instead of developing slowly—"

"They're just in my throat," he interrupted, not wanting to hear any more about his spectacular condition.

Tran shook it off, looking back up at the captain. "Inside your ears, too. Can you hear anything out of your left side?"

"No." He closed his eyes, another wave of heat moving over his skin. "I need to get ready."

"Shower, and then straight into the compressive suit I gave you; it should help with the swelling. We need to keep inflammation to a minimum. I'll give you some aspirin to keep it calm for now, then we'll see what else we can do." He was handed a pill that he tossed back dry, ignoring the unpleasant feeling of the aspirin sliding slowly down his throat.

People were watching. He was always the centre of attention first thing out of cryo. Del Rio had been good at barking orders at other officers to clear out, but he wasn't here anymore. And Lasky couldn't raise his voice above a pathetic whisper at the moment.

"Get up, Captain, and into a shower. Cool water only; it'll help with the swelling."

"Yeah," he agreed, pushing himself up the cryo pod with his hands and standing up slowly. The deck spun dangerously and Tran grabbed his arm.

"Slow, Thomas."

"I'm fine."

"You keep saying that," Tran reminded him. "Are you dizzy?"

"A little." He pulled out of Tran's grip and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. By now most of the officers had gone through decon and a quick shower, and were dressing. Worried looks were shot his way, and he did his best to ignore them. Their sympathy was kind, but he shouldn't be a thing of pity to his crew. He wondered what he must look like, and walked faster towards the shower door. Tran offered more words of caution behind him, but he decided to ignore them.

He stumbled again, his foot catching on the coarse grating, and this time Palmer grabbed him. She had appeared out of thin air, and Spartan-strong fingers held him in place.

"Easy," she said, her voice unnaturally low and gentle. It was oddly soothing. "It's getting worse."

"It's fine," he repeated, struggling to get out of her grip. Even fresh out of cryo, she was as warm as ever. He felt her eyes on him, but didn't meet her gaze. He also tried to desperately ignore that she was naked, with mixed results. _Thank god my body's still half-frozen. Popping an erection in the middle of the deck wouldn't be very professional of me._

"Do you need any—"

"No, Commander, I don't." She even smelled the same, and the fact that he still noticed annoyed him.

Her hand fell away, and her eyes went to the floor. "Just… be careful, Tom."

"I'm old; I'll take it slow," he bit back, and her face scrunched up. She nodded and walked away, and he shoved open the door to the showers. A stupid, childish thing to say, and instead of feeling satisfaction at throwing her words back at her, all he felt was a weird hollowness when he pictured her pained reaction.

Shaking his head violently—and then regretting it when it made his head swim—he turned on the first shower head he came to and scrubbed at his arms and chest, trying to get the frost off. He stepped under the frigid spray, and it burned his skin with cold heat.

"_Axios,"_ he whispered, wiping flakes of frost out of his hair. "_Axios."_

* * *

The compressive material he put under his uniform did help with the blisters, and it also prevented him from itching at any rashes. Tran had helped him slather himself with cream before putting the suit on, and he felt like he had an ill-fitting second skin on. Especially since the material would glide over his flesh from the moisture of the salve.

"Thank Christ we're here for a while," he muttered to himself. A few months for repairs and, even better, some shore leave. The decks were practically humming with excited conversation, everyone planning on how to spend their money and time on Earth. He'd issued a ship-wide approval of leave—they all deserved it, and he wasn't exactly thrilled at the idea of going through each leave request individually.

Which meant _he _also had two months of leave. He wouldn't be responsible for a city's worth of people for eight weeks. The prospect of a lack of responsibility scared him almost as much as having that very burden did. He was at a loss as to how he would spend his time now. It would be a stark contrast, going from being reamed out by Osman for letting a war criminal escape and having his ship boarded by Forerunners, to sleeping in and wasting his money on booze and souvenirs.

_Maybe I'll go meet someone my age, another officer from another ship that's docked for repairs and re-stock, get shit-faced drunk, and forget everything for an evening or two._ That sounded... nice, he supposed. He was never fond of the loss of control alcohol brought on, but maybe he needed a big dose of that. He certainly wouldn't mind some bed company for a night.

Palmer's words still followed him around, and he was having trouble letting it go. His heart still raced when he saw her, and he had on occasion contemplated marching over to her and starting a yelling match with her, if only get a more honest answer out of the woman. She'd known he was old and greying and covered in blisters, as she had put it, before offering to sleep with him—something else had changed. But pride always won out in the end, and so he kept silent.

And even more than that, he'd lost his best friend. They'd said a total of ten words to one another since he'd spoken to her in the Spartan Bays. It hurt more that he could no longer speak freely around her than it did knowing she didn't want an intimate relationship. He'd give anything to go back to just being friends instead the awful dance they were doing around each other.

His thoughts were interrupted by a powerful cough forcing itself up from his lungs. He doubled over, coughing into the back of his hand. He saw Roland's avatar pop up on his desk, obviously concerned.

He pulled his hand away, seeing flecks of blood blot his skin. He sighed, and the breath set his throat on fire.

"Are you alright, sir?"

"Just a cough, Roland. I'll get over it."

"So no, then."

He looked over at the bombardier, seeing a worried expression on his mustard features. "It won't kill me. Shore leave will do me good." He grabbed a tissue and wiped his hand and mouth clean. His mouth tasted strongly of blood. Maybe he should brush his teeth again.

"Spending it with anyone, sir?"

He frowned. "I don't know many people on Earth well enough to get drunk with them, so no."

"You know Palmer quite well."

He shot the AI a glare. "Don't."

"I'm just sayi—"

"Well _don't."_

Roland nodded, serious for once. "Yes, sir."

A knock on his door sounded, and the AI chose that opportune moment to snap a salute and disappear from his desk. "Com—" His throat closed in another cough, and he leaned against his desk for support. "Come… in," he rasped, his eyes watering. He wiped at his mouth again, hoping his teeth weren't pink with blood. He already looked sick enough.

The first and last person he wanted to see appeared on the other side of the door. Her smooth features furrowed in concern at the sight. "You don't look good," she began with, stepping tentatively into his room.

"Just a bad moment. What is it, Palmer?" He forced himself to meet her eyes, angry when he saw concern on her face.

"Everyone's preparing to leave the _Infinity._ The crew is pretty riled. Two whole months of leave," she added, smiling faintly. "That's a lot of time to get drunk and screw someone."

"Is there a problem?"

Her face fell, and she straightened. "I just… wondered if you were coming with everyone, sir. You've got two months of leave, too."

"I will when I've got time," he replied, rolling his shoulders. He'd need to re-apply a coat of balm soon.

She nodded, looking at the floor. "Are you… what did you plan on doing?"

"Not sure yet. Why?"

"I can't ask as a friend?"

"I wasn't aware that we were friends," he said harshly. Palmer's eyes snapped to his, studying his face. He was being mean, but her quiet, injured demeanour was pissing him off. What the hell did she have to be hurt about?

"I want to be friends, Tom."

He swallowed, stifling a cough. "Then why aren't we?"

"Because—" She cut herself off, shaking her head. "Because I don't know."

"Will that be all, Commander?" She looked so fucking _sad,_ so unlike her usual cool appearance. It made him want to punch something.

"Yes, sir," she responded, her voice masked with military professionalism.

"I'll see you groundside then."

"Of course."

* * *

He hadn't put on civilian clothes in years. In fact, he only had one pair of civvies to speak of—blue jeans, a long-sleeved white shirt, and a dark jacket. He barely recognised himself in the mirror with them on. At least they covered up the compression suit and blisters.

It was evening by Earth's time when he finally exited the _Infinity_. He made sure there weren't many crewmen around when he touched down on the soil, not wanting them to ask him how he was feeling. They knew he had a sensitivity to cytoprethaline, but he'd like to keep that knowledge to a minimum. It was more like a severe allergy, but no one needed to know that.

He had two months of time almost entirely to himself, besides the occasional check-up on the ship to see how repairs were going, and more money than he could hope to spend in years. In fact, he could retire this minute and never have to worry about taking care of himself again. Or deal with blisters.

He definitely needed to go to a bar.

The _Infinity _had been docked in Northern Scotland for its repairs; even though the ship's existence was well-known, the UNSC wanted to keep publicity to a minimum, especially when it came to how much damage the warship could sustain, and so it sat on Scotland's harsh northern shores, away from the large cities. All seventeen-thousand crew members had signed a nondisclosure agreement sent to them by ONI before landing to legally ensure that no one would discuss _Infinity's_ technology with anyone, including one another, while docked on Earth. He'd signed the paperwork a dozen times before, but ONI was nothing if not thorough.

He headed for Broadford, which was the largest settlement on the Isle of Skye, bar the UNSC's repair docks. Which, to be fair, wasn't saying much; it boasted only a tenth of a million people, and the city was stretched far across the large island. It was unusually quiet and empty compared to _Infinity's_ tightly-packed quarters. It was also pissing rain, and he was glad for his jacket.

It was a short walk from the base to the city, and he soon found a small pub to duck into. Inside was crowded, and the universal bar smell of cigarette smoke, sweat and beer assaulted him as soon as he stepped inside. A cursory look confirmed that there wasn't anyone he knew in the pub, and he made his way further into the building.

He sat down on a stool away from other patrons and called for a beer. His decidedly un-scottish accent drew the attention of several people, and he sunk lower into his seat.

"Fresh off the boat?" The woman behind the counter said conversationally, passing him a beer. He took a long pull of the dark ale, ignoring the burn in his throat. _Thank god we landed in rural Scotland,_ he thought, _these people know alcohol._

"Docked for repairs," he replied, taking another drink.

"Which one would that be, then? That big block you call a ship that landed today?"

He smiled faintly. "The _Infinity,_ yeah."

"Hope that's not as big as infinity can get," she mused, tapping her fingers on the bar. "Since the size of a city is pretty small."

He nodded in agreement, powering through his beer. He hadn't drank in a while, and the buzz was coming on surprisingly fast.

"So, what are you?" the woman prodded, looking him over.

"What do you mean?"

"You look like an engineer," she continued. "Got that look about you."

The way she said it made it sound vaguely insulting. He frowned. "I'm her captain."

A dark brow quirked. "Oh really?" He thought she would say more, but she was waiting for a reply from him, eyeing him expectantly.

"Yes, really," he replied, slightly annoyed. "Why?"

"Don't look much like an officer," she observed.

"I'm not on duty."

"More than that. I can usually tell officers from regular UNSC folk. You don't look much the part. Serious enough, though."

"How so?"

"Dunno," she said, shrugging. "Just got a sympathetic look to you." She was called on by another customer and moved away, ending the conversation and leaving him confused and somewhat offended.

_The hell does "sympathetic look" mean?_ he wondered. Again, he was uncertain if that had been meant as a compliment or an insult. Or maybe she was just observing and didn't mean it either way. _Or maybe you shouldn't take a stranger's word on complete faith._ He took another swig of beer, and quickly met with the bottom of his glass. He blew out a breath and stifled another cough. She looked to be the only person behind the counter, and he wasn't in the mood for more unwanted dissection of his character. He left a credit chip on the counter and got up, annoyed that he had to go somewhere else, especially so soon. Couldn't he get five minutes of peace and quiet?

He shoved out of the pub, shivering when the frigid air blasted rain over him. _I should just go get a hotel room and pass out. No one to bother me there._ He pulled up a map on his watch, trying to find the smallest hotel in the city. As long as it had a bed and a private room, he didn't care where it was.

A small motel caught his eye on the map, and he began walking deeper into the city—well, town, really. It felt too small and quaint to be a city. And the damn weather was definitely rural. He didn't remember Rio or New York ever being this windy. Or _cold. _The rain was turning into ice and snow now that the sun was hanging low in the sky. He made a mental note to go purchase a thick sweater tomorrow, preferably with a hood.

Even with the cold, he could appreciate the beauty of the town. The ancient, centuries-old style of tall housing and thin roads pervaded Broadford, and he even saw the occasional chunk of cobblestone in the sidewalks, which had been paved with concrete long ago. The looming buildings blocked some of the wind, even if it made him feel somewhat claustrophobic. He was pretty much the only soul in the street, the locals choosing the wise route of staying indoors tonight. The occasional passerby would look at him oddly, his clothing and posture painting him clearly as a military tourist. But they left him be, and he was happy for the quiet solitude.

Which, of course, didn't last long. He heard someone shout something behind him, from the other side of the road. He resisted the instinct to look around, instead hunching his shoulders and ducking his head. God, what was with people today? He was off-duty for the first time in a long time, and he hadn't even been off the ship for an hour.

They called again, closer now, and he decided he would ignore them in the hopes they would go away. He set a brisk pace down the sidewalk, ducking his head away from the rain. It was possible it could be a crewman from the _Infinity,_ but he had his phone if there was an emergency. Not very professional of him, but he didn't have the patience to care tonight. He'd just play dumb unless they ran up to him. _Which I really hope doesn't happen._

Another call, but this time he stopped short at the sound. He'd heard what the person was saying this time, a word that brought long-dead memories to the surface.

"_Axios!"_ He turned around, half-expecting no one to be there and for him to simply be going mad, but lo and behold, there was a figure behind him.

"Orenski?" he called back, squinting through the rain. He held up a hand to his eyes, struggling to see the person walk towards him as they crossed the street.

White teeth flashed in a dark face, covered mostly by a raincoat hood, and she came into clear view. "I finally found you," she replied. "Been looking for hours."

* * *

She pulled him into the nearest building, which happened to be a bookstore. The man running it looked somewhat irritated by their presence, as he appeared to be preparing to close the store for the night.

April removed her hood, shivering. "Brass takes you to the nicest places," she commented, looking out of the big front window. "I haven't seen this much rain in a long time."

His only response was to stare at her blankly. The day was getting more and more bizarre by the moment. More so because Orenski barely looked any different than she had on Circinius IV. Besides a few lines around her mouth and brows, she looked strikingly like her eighteen year-old self. She even wore her hair the same way, in thick braids pulled into a bun at the base of her neck.

"How—" he began, staring at her. "How are you here? I…."

She pulled him further into the store, picking up a book and pretending to look at it. "Heard _Infinity_ was landing here for repairs, so I made the trip. I'm stationed on Mars right now, so it wasn't a long flight." She smiled at him. "It's been so long, Lasky. I almost didn't think it was you when I saw you on the street."

He leaned against a bookshelf, running a hand through his hair. Droplets flew off his head, and he idly wiped off a cover of a book that he'd splashed water onto. "I know, I… Jesus." He was at a loss. The sight of her brought back a flood of memories, from a life he'd mostly succeeded in forgetting about.

"Did you two need help finding anything?" the shopkeeper called, sounding impatient. April rolled her eyes.

"No thank you, sir. We were just leaving." She nodded to the door. "Guess we'll have to find another place to dry off in. I got a room just down the street. Come on, _Captain,"_ she added, heading for the door. He followed her silently, still dumbstruck.

"How'd you hear about _Infinity?"_ he asked, frowning as they walked out into the cold rain again. "We landed here so people wouldn't know the ship had been docked for repairs."

"Made Commander during the war," she replied, pulling her hood back up. "Hear a lot through the grapevine, including that you now command the biggest ship the UNSC's ever built."

He shrugged. "Not as glamourous as it sounds, believe me."

She smiled, shaking her head. "You really haven't changed."

"I doubt that."

"Exactly," she said, her smile widening. "So… how've you been?"

He frowned at the question. The last time he'd seen her had been thirty years ago. The amount of shit that had happened since then… he wasn't sure where to start.

"I don't know how to answer that, Orenski," he said, trying for honesty. Technically, she was _his _subordinate now. Everything had changed. "It's been thirty years."

She looked over at him. "Then we'll start with something light; what do you plan to do with your shore leave?"

"I still don't know how to answer that," he muttered, and she laughed. "I'd been trying to get a few minutes to myself when you caught up with me."

"Oh."

"No," he said immediately, hoping he hadn't offended her. "I didn't mean it that way—I'm glad to see you, just… surprised, is all." He resisted the instinct to call her sir. She was less uptight than he remembered, but still carried herself with the same easy confidence. She reminded him of Palmer.

"I wondered what you'd look like when I finally found you," she mused, and they turned a corner, coming onto a main road, this one better lit and more populated. "You were a skinny teenager that last time I saw you. You're not quite so skinny now," she added, shooting him a look. "In a lot better shape than most captains, though."

"Thanks. I think," he replied dryly. "You… don't look any different. It was a bit of a shock to see you—thought I was going crazy for a second."

"Always nice to hear, especially when I'm pushing fifty. Oh, That's where I'm staying," she said, pointing to a sign that read _Broadford Inn - All are Welcome!_ "Looked homey, and the rooms are clean enough. _And _they've got a big heating unit inside." She hurried towards the slanted steps of the inn, and he followed quickly on her heels. A warm, dry room sounded marvelous right about now.

They both ducked inside, and the temperature difference made him shudder violently. He coughed, his raw throat immediately reacting to the much drier air inside the inn. April eyed him worriedly at the sound of the cough, but he waved his hand in dismissal. "I was actually thinking of getting a room here too. Most of the crew went for the big hotels."

"Well now you don't need to bother with that. You can crash in my room for the night, if you want." She wiped her boots on the front carpet, smiling at the innkeeper.

"That'll spread a lot of gossip," he said, smiling and following her example.

"Probably, but whatever. Makes life more interesting." She nodded towards the stairs. "I can call for some coffee to be brought up. Or hot chocolate, if you prefer."

The room she was staying in was nice. Simple, with bland furniture and empty walls, but it was neat and clean and dry, and that was all he cared about. He hung up his jacket on the wobbling coat rack by the door and stepped out of his shoes, shivering again. Two months of leave had sounded nice, but spending it in cold rain would be a challenge.

"Sit down wherever," she said, hanging up her own coat and kicking off her boots. "I'll get you a towel."

She disappeared into the bathroom and he looked around the room. She had a lone suitcase sitting in the corner, with military-grade folded clothing resting neatly inside. The bed was made, and nothing was out of place—it didn't even look like she was staying here. It was possible that not quite _everything_ had changed. Her obsessively clean tendencies were still abundant, and the tiny constant in her behaviour made him smile.

"Here," she said, coming back into the main room and handing him a towel. He wiped off his head and face, sighing in relief when he finally felt dry.

"Maybe I'll book a flight to Mexico," he mused. "Or somewhere that doesn't get an ocean's worth of rain every day."

She laughed at that, and immediately picked up the towel he set down on a chair, folding it neatly. He watched her, about to make a comment, when he noticed a flash of gold on her ring finger.

"You got married?" he asked, surprised.

"Of course," she said, giving him a look. "Don't sound so shocked, Lasky. Been married seven years now. Our anniversary is coming up on the eighteenth." Her face turned a bit mournful. "Won't be able to make it back to her in time, though. I'll have to figure out a way to set up some kind of dinner date for us over video."

"Well, I'm happy for you," he said, smiling. The words _of course_ lingered in his mind, as if marriage was some inevitable condition, and he wasn't looking forward to the question she was about to ask.

"And what about you? Tied down yet?"

"No," he said quickly, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Been too busy for anything like that."

"Really?" she said, drawing out the word. "Last I heard you were hooking up with a Spartan."

He let out a long-suffering sigh. "Apparently everyone in the UNSC knows. Or thinks they know. But, no, I'm not. We're just… friends." He struggled with the last word, unsure if he was telling the truth or not.

"Sounds like a strong friendship," she commented, catching his tone.

"It's a long story. And a boring one," he added, looking at the floor. "You know what, I won't impose; I'll go check out my own room."

"If you want," she said carefully. "Just know you've got a friend around." She paused, twisting her mouth as she thought. "You know, I was worried when the Navy first split us up, after CAMS. You always asked too many questions, and after Chyler… I thought you might wash out."

"I thought I would too," he said quietly. "I almost did."

"Well, I'm glad you didn't. You're a good leader."

"I sometimes don't feel like one."

"That's why you are. Power gets to peoples' heads so often. A bit of doubt is good for you." She smiled. "And now here you are, my superior. I should be the one sir-ing and saluting you now."

Then she did something that surprised him. She wrapped her arms around him in a big hug, her grip strong and sure. He leaned into it, returning it with full force.

"It's good to see you, Lasky."

"You too, Orenski. We should go for coffee tomorrow and catch up."

She pulled away, nodding. "I like the sound of that. Hopefully it won't be so awful in the morning."

He reluctantly untangled from the hug, heading for the door. He'd been feeling isolated for a while; it was good to see a friendly face.

"Oh, and Tom?"

He stopped at the door, turning around. "Yeah?"

"Lana, my wife… she's pregnant." Her face broke into a big grin. "It'll be a girl."

"Congratulations," he said, returning the smile. "We'll have to go for a beer too, to celebrate."

"It's just—we're naming her Chyler."

He looked away, a painful lump in his throat forming at the sound of her name, even after so many years. "That's… that's nice, April. I'm glad."

"_Axios," _she whispered, meeting his eyes.

"_Axios."_

* * *

**AN:** For those that haven't seen Forward Unto Dawn, _Axios_ was the "catchphrase" of Corbulo Academy, the school Lasky attended as a teen. It means "I am worthy", and refers to the Roman General Corbulo who fell on his own sword by the order of the Emperor to prove his loyalty. Additionally, April Orenski was the leader of the squad he was in. I'd check out the series if you haven't already, since it's very well done. Plus, Teenage Chief is in it, and who doesn't love some Master Chief?


	7. Helljumper

**Chapter Seven - Helljumper  
**

"Of course Sully's a spook," he muttered, sipping his coffee. God, it was good fucking coffee. Nothing like that brown paste the UNSC tried to pass off as caffeine. He'd have to buy a big bag of it before heading back to _Infinity._

"ONI forgave the massive breach in security he created when he hacked into those Spartan files at CAMS—on the condition that he work for them, of course," April added, dipping a chunk of her blueberry muffin into her coffee. "I'm surprised you haven't talked to him at all."

"He did send me a few messages about a month or two after Circinius-IV was glassed, asking how I was doing." He shifted in his seat, which was unusually comfortable. He was used to the bony captain's chair and stainless steel mess hall seats, not plush leather stools. Maybe he'd buy a few chairs, too.

"And?"

"I never responded," he said, feeling a pool of regret collect in his chest. "I wanted to forget about all of it, to move on. And after I got over that, I was too ashamed about ignoring his messages to reach out to him. Now that the war's over though, I wouldn't mind seeing him again." Sully had been his only other real friend to speak of besides Chyler at CAMS. Orenski had always been polite, but she'd also been the squad leader. There wasn't any room for a personal relationship there. He was glad that had changed now, at least.

"Better late than never," April agreed, humming as she drank her coffee. They had the coffee shop mostly to themselves, due to the habit of waking up at dawn that had been drilled into them their whole lives.

"So what are you doing on Mars?"

She shot him a sly look at his clumsy change of topic, but thankfully humoured him and answered the question. "Training ODSTs. I did a few tours myself as one, but when I got married I promised Lana I'd calm down, so now I just train the bastards. The UNSC set up a small base there until Reach becomes un-glassed, and the shitty climate is good for training. Nothing fancy, but the pay is nice and the work is mostly non-lethal."

"Sounds like a good gig," he agreed. "What about your wife?"

"She's an engineer—designs cryo-pods for civilian cruiseships. She did a few for the UNSC, but she said they were too boring and dull, so she sticks with the more classy civilian ones."

He laughed. "Navy isn't exactly known for its style. She must have to fly all over the place for that, though."

"Yeah, lots of flying. She gets to see all the tourist-y planets where they take the ships. Sandy beaches and peach coolers—hard knock life for her." April smiled before downing her coffee, then frowned at the empty cup. "I have to get some of this stuff. Even groundside bases have shit coffee."

"You're happy, though?" he asked, watching her break apart the rest of her muffin. Rip off and eat the top, then mop up the last drops of her coffee with the bottom. The old habit made him smile.

"Wish I saw her more, but yeah, I'm pretty happy. Life's good and boring most of the time, which is perfectly fine with me." She looked up from her muffin. "What about you, Tom?"

He shrugged. "Life's… interesting. _Infinity_ keeps me on my toes a lot. Don't think I'll marry though; like I said, I'm too busy."

"What about that Spartan of yours?" April asked, inspecting a piece of blueberry from her breakfast.

He frowned at the words _your Spartan._ She wasn't his Spartan—Sarah wasn't anyone's Spartan. "Not much to say. She seemed interested, but now she's… not."

"Probably just scared," she offered, and he laughed at that. She raised a confused brow and he hurried to explain.

"I don't think Palmer knows what scared is. The last time she got injured they found her lying next to an elite with its head caved in and stabbed with its own knife."

April raised a brow. "Love and war are two different things, Lasky. Being fearless in battle doesn't make you brave everywhere else."

"Doesn't help my situation much, though, does it?"

"How interested was she, exactly?"

His face flushed a bright pink, and her grin widened. "Oh yeah? That kind of interested, huh?"

"We didn't sleep together," he insisted.

"Just a bit of harmless second base then," she said dryly. "My point is—if she was _that_ interested and walked away… you, uh, didn't say anything stupid, did you?"

"No," he said immediately. "I mean... I don't think I did."

"Well, you either said something stupid—which I can fully understand—or she wasn't ready and got spooked—or maybe she was scared of frat regs? No? Didn't think so. It's just—I know it was hard for me at first, when I was dropping groundside in a metal coffin and woke up every morning thinking I might die in a few hours. You see how easily you lose people and it freaks you out."

He frowned, wondering if Orenski was right. She _had_ been acting differently right after that elite had stabbed her…. _No. Don't hope, and definitely don't assume._

"Have you tried talking to her?"

"Yeah. It didn't really end well though," he said, running a hand through his hair. "I shouldn't even be trying anyway. The captain of a UNSC flagship and the commander of the Spartan-IVs should really not be sleeping together."

"But you love her," she said, and he flinched at the word. It had been a long time since he'd heard the L word said out loud.

"I… I don't know."

"Your answer isn't a no," she continued. "So at the very least you care about her."

"Of course I do," he insisted.

"Then why not? Life's too short. And you guys aren't in the same branch or chain of command. It's still not ideal, but… you could work around the technical stuff if you really want to try."

"What if it doesn't work out? What if—" _What if one of us dies?_ was what he tried to say, but the words stuck in his throat. "What if something bad happens?"

"Then die a blue-balled old man and just be her friend," April said calmly. "I know... it won't be easy, but you can both make it work somehow, if you try."

"I suppose," he said doubtfully, standing up from his stool. "I just have to get her to talk to me first."

"Well, where is she?"

He stared at her. "I didn't mean _now."_

"Why not? Stewing over it won't do you any good." April stood up as well, stretching her arms above her head.

"It's—" He struggled to find a reason. Well, a logical reason, anyway. "I just... think I'll hold off for now."

Orenski looked him over. "You always did think too much, Lasky."

"So I've been told."

They exited the tiny cafe—after he purchased a bag of coffee grounds—and April cupped her hands to her eyes, glaring at the cloudy sky.

"It's gonna rain again," she said, sounding resigned.

"How much leave time do you have?"

"Only forty-eight hours. I should head back to my room anyway; there's still some stuff I need to get before heading back to Mars."

"No time for that celebration beer then," he teased.

"You're just stalling for time now, Captain. Go find your Spartan lady and make the most out of the months you've got. No crewmen to bother you while you screw each other silly," she shot back, grinning at his flushed cheeks.

"Not funny."

"Oh, I think it is." She looked back at him, her expression sobering. "I'm glad I got to see you, Tom. I didn't know what to expect, but… I'm glad I saw you. It's so weird now—after Corbulo, everything felt like a dream for a while, but now having aliens around is normal and the war's finally over. Odd to remember it, since it still feels like some fantasy when I think about it."

"I know what you mean." He reached into his pocket, pulling out the tags that somehow always managed to follow him wherever he went. He palmed the smooth oval of the chip of Hunter's armour he'd been given so many years ago, by the very first Spartan he'd ever met. "I saw him again, you know."

"Who?"

"The Master Chief."

April went still. "I heard he died."

"It's still kind of classified, but he's definitely alive."

"How... how is he?" she asked hesitantly, as if unsure the question was appropriate.

He inspected the dog tags of his brother and Chyler that accompanied the stone on the chain. "Spartan-IVs aren't like the originals. Most of the IVs were ODSTs before they joined, which means most of them are jackass lunatics. Great soldiers, but impulsive and emotional. Chief, though... he just always looks calm. Really calm, and even more quiet, like he's listening for something." He looked up at April. "I don't know how he is. He lost the AI he'd worked with inside his head for the entire Halo campaign, which... I'm glad I don't have to know what that feels like. I could see that it hurt him, but he just seemed to shrug it off and move on. Hood gave him some assignment or another, and now he's left _Infinity._ I hope wherever he went, he's got better luck there."

"I had thought they were robots for a long time, even after they took off their helmets. They were always freakishly serene," Orenski mused, her voice solemn and her eyes far away, seeing something else.

"I think it's just a defence mechanism. I doubt anyone's ever walked up to them and asked them how they were feeling. Chief looked shocked that I even went looking for him for something else besides a mission debriefing."

"Must get lonely," she said, looking mournful. "With everyone so afraid of you."

"He seems to enjoy his job enough, though I doubt they know anything else besides fighting." He stopped that line of thought; grieving over the loss of a normal life for so many children was a pointless exercise, and he already had enough on his plate to worry about. "Well," he continued, trying to lighten the mood. "Thanks for the pep-talk. Hopefully I'll find something more cheerful to discuss next time we see each other."

Orenski laughed, grateful for the break in the somber mood. "I hope it works out for you, Tom. You look like you could use a dose of TLC."

He raised a brow. "I'll take that as a compliment. Message me when you get back to Mars, so I know you've made it back okay."

"Sure thing mom," she teased, then squeezed him in another warm, tight hug. "See you around, cadet."

"You too, sir."

* * *

Oh yes, she could get used to this.

She slid lower into the large tub, the hot water coming up to her chin. Sarah had found a hotel with a bathtub and bed large enough to accommodate Spartan height, and she spent the whole day doing a whole lot of nothing. The first night she'd been too grateful to be sleeping in a real bed with downy pillows to do much besides pass out, but the next morning she'd taken full advantage of room service bringing her breakfast and then spending the afternoon taking a bath. She didn't do the pamper thing often, but it felt nice to feel like a girl once and a while. She'd shaved her legs and bikini line, added scented soaps to the water, and sank down into the bubbles with a glass of wine and some music.

She'd made sure no one would bother her for a minimum of twenty-four hours, briefing her Spartans and advising them not to contact her unless one of them was dying, otherwise she would quickly fix their state of mortality. That, and not to get too drunk or pick up anything nasty, be it in the form of a cold or venereal disease. And her comm hadn't gone off yet, so maybe they'd actually take her advice and keep to themselves. She knew the temptation to go get hammered and screw someone in the men's room was strong, since she'd done that a few times herself in her ODST days, but the weight of command left her wanting to do something a lot less remorseful than getting shitfaced. All she needed was a vibrator to go with her current collection of bath water and wine and her day would be perfect.

Following that enticing train of thought, she eyed the shower head. Well, maybe she didn't need to go buy a fancy vibrator, since the jet spray would work well enough—and there was the added bonus of not having to get up and order one. She stood up briefly and reached for the head, putting her glass of wine down on the floor next to the tub, and looked down at the settings.

She turned it on, testing each setting against her hand until she found one she liked, and sat back down, shifting into a more comfortable position. Sarah closed her eyes and leaned back, trying to empty her brain and focus on how warm the water was, the small fire the wine had set up in her belly, and the fact that she had absolutely no responsibilities today. She let out a warm sigh, settling into the curves of the bathtub, and let the showerhead go to work. Yes, she thought, a wave of contentment washing over her, this _was _perfect. And so long overdo.

Just as things started to get good, her ears registered the blaring sound of her phone, which was buzzing angrily on the bathmat next to her.

"Oh, fuck you," she muttered, reluctantly retracting the spray and turning it off, letting it fall limp into the water. She reached a soapy hand down to the comm next to the tub and brought it up to her face, glaring at the damp screen. If it was one of her Spartans….

It was Lasky.

_No,_ her mind groaned, and she clicked the phone on to mute. Immediately her brain filled with thoughts of him, his smile and the creases on his forehead and his brown eyes, which only turned her on more. A lot more. A lot more than should ever be appropriate for her to feel about her _stupid, nice _CO.

She let it go to voicemail, putting the phone back down. She watched the screen to see if he'd leave a message, but he simply hung up. Probably a good thing, since she _really_ didn't want to hear his voice right now. _His light, sexy voice…._

She sighed and leaned back, rubbing her brow. The simple thought of him completely ruined her previously excellent mood, replaced with shame and guilt and a whole lotta unwanted sexual tension, and there was no way in hell she could continue making love to the shower _now,_ not with Tom on the brain. He would not be her personal fantasy, not if she could help it.

Sitting there for a few more minutes to confirm that there was no way she could relax again, she pulled the plug with her toe and stood up, grabbing a towel and stepping out of the tub, letting out a string of expletives as she dried off. Swearing didn't even have the cathartic effect it normally did, which only made her more angry.

Now what the fuck was she supposed to do? Her whole body was locked up and tense now, undoing the multiple therapeutic measures she'd taken to relax. It had taken hours to achieve it, and a look at one stupid name on a screen had fucked it all up.

Why the hell had he even called? It obviously wasn't an emergency, or he'd be leaving a voicemail and calling her again. And he'd been pretty clear on the state of their personal relationship last time she'd talked to him, so it couldn't be for a friendly chat.

She looked at her phone. Maybe she should call him back, ask him what the hell he wanted. Or she could ignore it and stop being a lovesick little girl. The second option sounded better, and the previous thoughts of getting really drunk immediately became more appealing.

She towelled off and shoved into a pair of sweats, moving into the main area of her hotel room. She looked at the television, then the laptop on the desk, and then the datapad she'd thrown on the couch. Sarah needed something loud and bright to distract herself with.

She moved over to the TV and fiddled with the remote, trying to find a movie to watch. She could watch a horror flick, movies she usually hated because of how stupid everyone acted in them, to take her mind off him. Something explosive and fast and preferably violent. No comedies, and definitely no romance.

She clicked on a random movie from the suspense category and sank into the couch, rubbing a smaller towel through her hair as the movie began. This would kill at least two hours, and by then she hoped to have settled down.

Sarah forced herself to watch the entire thing, sitting ramrod straight on the cushions and only giving the screen her peripheral attention. It was a long, miserable hour and forty-five minutes of her life, and she found herself more upset by the end of the movie than she had at the beginning. She'd chewed her lip until it had become a chapped mess, and her hair hung limp and damp in her face, but she was too absorbed in being annoyed to notice her usual pet peeve of hair in her eyes.

The longer she sat, the more she thought about him. About how awful she'd been to Tom, about how she'd messed up the closest, most valuable friendship she'd ever had, about how fucking _stupid _she'd been for even kissing him in the first place… and about how much she wanted to do it again. The lack of relief from her personal session in the tub was not helping matters either, only adding to the ball of stress rooted firmly in her stomach, a heavy lead weight that made her feel mildly nauseated.

She needed to do something. Something physical, something demanding, to get her mind off of it. She didn't know how Tom could just sit and _worry_—a few hours of sitting still left her ready to explode.

Running was too simple, too boring. She should return to the _Infinity,_ back to Spartan Town, and run lone wolf sims in the War Games. Crank up the difficulty, make the terrain and weather impossible, disable the use of equipment… yes, that sounded good. Better than sitting around or giving in to the growing temptation to get extremely drunk and do something idiotic.

_Running from your problems again. Very brave, Spartan. And your problem happens to barely come up to your collarbone and owns a pair of duckling pyjama pants._

She whipped a pillow across the room, hard enough to slam into the opposite wall, before it thudded uselessly to the ground. Sarah stood up and stomped back into the bathroom, glaring at her phone still on the floor and feeling her lips pull back in a snarl.

"Fuck you, Tom!" she shouted at the comm, feeling her fists shake at her sides. "Fuck you, fuck you, fuck _you!_ I can't have one _day_ of peace, one fucking _day,_ without you trying to shove your way in and _complicate_ everything!" Her voice reached a dangerous level, but it felt _good_ to shout. She couldn't very well get angry with him in person for being a bitch to him.

Sarah swiped it up from the ground, slackening her grip on it when the phone screeched and clicked in her hand from the strain. She finally realised what that big ball in her stomach was. It wasn't worry, or anger, or tension. It was _fear._

What the fuck was wrong with her? Scared of _Lasky?_ What the hell could he do to her? He was too fucking _nice_ to do anything mean—he didn't possess a mean bone in his body.

_Or maybe that's what you're scared of? Someone being nice to you for once, and not just to sleep with you?_

She glared at her phone, unable to bear thinking in circles anymore. She was a Spartan. She didn't cower at death; she certainly wouldn't be afraid of the thought of talking to her captain. _Not __**my**_ _captain. He isn't anyone's, he's just __**a**_ _cap_—_stop thinking._

She would call him. She would call him and ask him what the fuck he wanted. Get into a fight with him, make him _angry_, so that he would just _stop_ talking to her once and for all and she could ignore him and get on with life.

She clicked his name and brought the phone to her ear, ignoring the slight tremor in her fingers. She'd give him a goddamn earful for doing this to her. She was a doubtful mess of guilt and longing, like some fawning idiot waiting for approval and love from—

"_Sarah?"_ _Oh god._

"You called me?" she asked, her voice strained.

"_Yeah. I just wanted to talk to you. In person. I just didn't know where to find you."_

"My location's in the ship's logs." He sounded so… so much like himself. Hopeful and cautious and warm. She wondered what he looked like right now—did he look worried? Happy that she called back? Afraid that she'd be exactly what she always was—a giant bitch? _Your Spartans are right. You make people hate you when the going gets rough, cut them out and leave them hanging while you run._

"_I didn't want to impose or make you think I was following you." _

Her eyes stung at his reply. God, why the hell did he have to be so _nice_ to her? She didn't deserve his warmth, now more than ever before. The thought of hurting him again made her chest tighten hard enough to take her breath away, and with difficulty she swallowed the caustic comment on the tip of her tongue. Tom was too good for that, even if being nice to him would only make things worse.

"I'm at the Broadford Grand Hotel, the big building on Grand." For the first time in years she heard her voice shake, unnaturally human and weak. Nothing like a Spartan or ODST should sound. She sounded frail and uncertain and scared. _Helljumper, Helljumper, where you been?_

"_I'll be at the pub across the street. I'd like to talk, if you_—_I just need to talk to you."_

She felt herself being pushed towards a very high cliff, and a wave of dizziness came over her. She grabbed the sink, trying to steady herself. She was going to have to make a difficult decision soon, one she didn't know if she was ready to make. No, scratch that; she _never _wanted to make that decision. She just wanted everything to go back to the way it had been before, when they'd been friends and she could ignore the warm feeling in her stomach she felt whenever he looked at her. Now it was slowly spreading through her body, making Tom impossible to just be friends with. _Why? Why the fuck did I ever kiss you? Why can't we just __**forget**_ _everything and go back to the good old days?_

"_Sarah?"_ His voice sounded hesitant and unsure, and it snapped her back to reality. Maybe he was freaking out just as much as she was, except he was a lot better at handling it. Or acting like he wasn't having a meltdown.

"I'll be there," she said quickly, then panicked and pressed the CALL END button. She couldn't talk anymore—she had to _move,_ to do something besides standing there listening to his quiet voice. She realised she hadn't asked the time to meet him, but that didn't matter. She would just wait there for him—it was the least she could do. Wait and worry and pray to god he was going to say something like _we need to be more professional with each other,_ no matter how much her gut screamed at her that it was going to be the exact opposite.

_Feet first into hell and back again!_

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**AN:** Getting into the good stuff finally! Stay tuned for another dose of _angsty smut_ from your local service provider!


	8. A Matter of Relation

**AN: **I'm now issuing an official smut warning - thar be lemons down below, so if you aren't cool with that, you _really_ won't like this chapter.

As well, thanks to everyone who has left a review so far - the feedback is invaluable and inspiring. You guys are awesome!

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**Chapter Eight - A Matter of Relation  
**

He carefully laid out every possible response and question he could think of in his mind, planning what exactly he would say to Sarah when he saw her. He would be firm with her, make sure she knew what the situation was and what their options were. He wanted to know one way or another how they were going to go forward, and the idea that there was a chance that she would agree to be more than friends almost scared him more than the thought of her rejecting the proposition outright. Lasky had a dozen different conversations with himself inside his head, trying to guess at the innumerable amount of things she could possibly say to him, with a limited amount of success. Sarah always surprised him, always kept him guessing. Just when he thought he had her figured out, she'd come back with something that would send him reeling in his shoes. Like the current state of their friendship, if he could still call it that.

An hour of thinking left him with a rather impressive speech, full of calm, collected thoughts and responses to her usually prickly nature. In his mind, everything was laid out perfectly, and he was sure by the end of his discussion with her, all would be well in the world.

He was an idiot. The adage _no plan survives contact with the enemy _was one he had heard more times than he could count, but for some reason he was still shocked that all of his words dried up on his tongue and his thoughts fractured when he saw her walk into the pub. He'd been waiting there, and he'd been knocking back a beer when his phone had gone off and Sarah's voice had come through the speaker, almost too good to be true. He'd known she was in the Grand, but made sure she was the one who told him as much, realising before he made his way over there that she'd think it off-putting if he showed up to her room uninvited and unannounced. Besides, he wanted to be fair; she had just as much time to prepare for what was going to be a difficult conversation as he did.

He'd made sure not to drink too much, knowing that even though it calmed his nerves, alcohol wouldn't serve him well in the long run. He might do something rash that would only make things worse. The last few drops of his second beer stuck in his throat when he saw her enter, and he struggled to swallow it without erupting into a fit of coughing. By the time she found him, he'd managed to wipe the tears from his eyes and calm the red flush creeping up his face from choking on his drink.

She looked unnaturally calm, which actually helped with his own nerves. It meant she was just as freaked out as he was about talking, and he tried to look more collected as she made her way over.

Sarah stopped short at his booth, standing frozen next to the seat. He gave her a tight smile that didn't reach his eyes, and gestured for her to have a seat. She slid into it with Spartan grace, and he saw her grip on the table make her knuckles go white with the strain.

"Do you want anything?" he asked, wincing at the tense sound of his own voice.

Sarah remained silent, only shaking her head in response. He blew out a breath, feeling his heart thunder in his ribcage. He leaned forward on the table, folding his hands. Time to put on his Captain face.

"Sarah—"

"Tom—"

They both made quick eye contact, stopping to let the other one speak. He felt his mouth twitch in nervous laughter and bit the inside of his cheek, looking away.

"You first," he said, motioning his hand toward her. He hadn't expected her to talk much, if at all.

"No, you."

He met her gaze again. Always a challenge with Sarah. It made him smile, despite the uneasy atmosphere.

"Did you want to go somewhere else?" he asked. There wasn't exactly a crowd in the pub at two in the afternoon, but she might speak more freely to him in private. _Not that Sarah's ever let anything keep her from speaking her mind,_ he thought in amusement.

"No, here is fine," she said stiffly. She sat straight in her seat, as if sitting in front of a judge waiting for her sentence.

He nodded, running a hand through his hair. He really needed a haircut. "Okay, yeah." He took another deep breath, making sure to meet her eyes. It wasn't an easy feat, but he needed her full attention. "I don't even know where to start."

"Why'd you ask me to come?" she asked, a small smile forming on her lips. "The why of things is usually important."

He was grateful for the levity, accepting the olive branch for what it was. "I suppose it is. I asked you here because I wanted to discuss—" God, he sounded too formal. _She isn't an Admiral, she isn't a spook, she's just Sarah. Talk to Sarah._ He sighed and tried again. "I miss you, Sarah."

Well. Not exactly what he planned to say either. That wasn't formal _enough._ Palmer showed her surprise at the confession, her eyes widening.

He swallowed, hurrying to explain. "It's been a rough few weeks. I want… I want patch things up, in whatever way we can. I'd like to… be more than what we were, but the last time we spoke—"

"I was a cunt," she interrupted, smiling bitterly.

He raised a brow. "Not exactly the way I'd phrase it, but… you said you didn't want…." Why was it so hard? He felt like an awkward teenager again, struggling to look a girl in the face and ask her out to a date. It was as exhilarating as it was frustrating.

"I said a lot of things," she continued, rolling her shoulders. "A lot of things you didn't deserve to hear."

An apology from Palmer was a rare thing, and he felt a part of the weight on his heart lift at her words. He hadn't realised how long it had been there until it was gone, and he relaxed in his seat.

"We both did things that were unprofessional," he conceded, answering her apology with his own. "And it's messed everything up. You're… you're a good friend, Sarah. The closest one I have, in fact, and I don't want to lose that."

"But it's going to happen," she said quietly, unnatural for her. "One of us will die, or get relocated, or get injured, and then we'll be alone. We'll lose whatever this is, one way or another."

April's voice immediately echoed in his mind when Sarah finished, whispering _I told you I was right._ It took a moment to fully absorb her words, but when they finally registered, a grin threatened to split his face. Sarah looked rattled by his reaction, but he couldn't force the expression away.

"Why the hell are you smiling?" she demanded, sounding more like herself.

He didn't know how to answer. He wasn't entirely sure himself, except that those were the words he'd wanted to hear for weeks. The words that said, more than anything else could have, that she _did _want to move forward with whatever they had between them. Fear was the only obstacle, or the only one that mattered, at least.

"Lasky," she said, sounding annoyed now. "What's wrong with you?"

"You're what's wrong," he replied, trying to get his emotions under control.

She gave him a glare, and he realised what he'd just said sounded rather awful. "I mean—I'm glad you said that."

"Why?" she asked, looking wary.

"Because you _do _want this."

"I didn't say that," she insisted, going into defensive mode. "I said one of us is going to get ourselves blown up and fuck over whoever's left alive because of it."

"And what if we don't do this?" he asked, trying to keep his voice low. The bartender seemed to have taken an interest in their conversation, and Lasky leaned forward more. "What if we just 'yes sir' each other for the rest of our lives and never give this a chance? Never take a risk?"

"It's safer this way," she murmured, looking at the table. "It's better this way, Tom. Less damage control."

He needed to speak her language. She was clamming up, looking ready to strike out with venom and then bolt. "Spartan's don't run. They might die, but they don't run."

As he knew they would, his words hit a nerve. Brown eyes sparked and shot back to him, filling with fire. "I'm not a coward."

"Then sleep with me," he shot back.

Her eyes narrowed. "You're acting like you're some irresistible piece of ass, Lasky."

"There's the pot calling the kettle back," he countered, grinning.

Her hands curled into fists on the table. He'd gotten her pinned down now. "You're a real shithead, you know that?"

"I thought you slept with shitheads?"

Oh yes, she was angry now. But it was a different kind of anger—anger at being beaten. "I'm going to strangle you," she threatened, her voice low and filled with ice. Any other person would run fifty clicks in the opposite direction at her words, but they were music to his ears.

"So that's a yes, then?"

"When the fuck did you get so cocky?" she asked, avoiding the question.

"Learned from _Infinity's_ resident expert," he replied, slowly sliding a hand towards hers. Her eyes tracked the movement, her body going tense. For all her strength and height, she looked like a deer staring down a speeding car. Cautious movements, challenging words. That was how he could catch a Spartan, or at least a Spartan like Sarah.

_There are no Spartans like Sarah._

"I know you want this," he said, echoing the words she'd said to him in his cabin right before she'd straddled him in his chair. The look on her face told him she remembered that conversation, too. "I sure as hell do."

His fingers brushed against her knuckles, the first contact he'd had with her in weeks. Her body was stiff as stone, and he saw a faint tremor run through her.

"It's too risky, Tom. I can't get close, not with you." She withdrew her hand under the table, and he looked back up at her face.

"I've lost people too, Sarah. Lots of people. Most of them were like family to me, one of them _was_ family. And even if one of us gets lost too—" he struggled with the words, speaking around the hard lump they had suddenly put in his throat. "I want to be able to know I made every moment count. I've already lost time with you, and I don't intend to lose more."

She looked to be on the verge of tears. Her eyes shined, and her expression told him she wanted to get away, to retreat to a safe distance before she could be convinced otherwise. "I don't know if I can," she whispered, her voice uncertain.

"I don't know if I can either," he confessed, knowing what she meant. "But I promise I'll try."

Her bottom lip quivered. No tears fell from her eyes—no, she wouldn't dare let that happen. But she did slip her hand out from the table and grabbed his hard, hard enough to make his bones creak.

"Then I guess... I can try too."

The silence following her words was filled with things left unsaid, things neither of them were capable of saying, not now, and maybe not ever. He finally looked up from her hand covering his, and met her eyes on last time. The heat he saw in them, sudden and unfiltered and uninhibited, made his heart beat loudly in his ears.

He breathed out slowly, the contact of their hands quickly becoming painfully hot on his knuckles. "Where?" he said quietly, watching the skin of her neck flush. The desire to kiss his way across the plane of pink skin took his breath away. With her last words she'd sealed the decision they'd both arrived at, and now his thoughts were left to drift elsewhere. The look in her eyes told him she felt similarly.

"Anywhere," she said back. Hunger burst forth, immediate and strong and uncomfortable, finally able to be free from the tight constraint he'd held it under for so long, and her words were what undid his control completely.

"Come on," he murmured, pulling her out of the booth. He shot a look towards the bartender, the only other person in the room, and saw that the man had his back strategically turned to them, appearing to be totally absorbed in watching the gravball game on the TV. _I owe you a beer,_ he thought as he dropped credits on the table, before Sarah took the lead and shoved them into the nearby washroom.

She pressed the door closed and grabbed his neck, pulling him roughly against her. They both moaned when their lips met, and he wrapped his arms firmly around her waist. The force with which they met made him know he'd have bruises later, but he still felt too far away from her. They need to be closer, with nothing separating them.

Palmer fiddled with the handle behind her, twisting the knob hard until she'd jammed the door lock. Then she moved them towards the bathroom counter, tugging on his jacket while he pulled her hair free from its ponytail. He noticed dimly that her hair was damp, and the thought of her in the shower only made him more desperate.

She switched their positions and sat down on the fake marble countertop, her back digging into a soap dispenser. Her legs wrapped around his waist and he shifted his hips to fit snuggly with hers, the both of them moaning into one another's mouths when he felt his member press into her thigh.

He broke off the kiss and moved to her throat, feeling her fingers scrape against the skin of his back as she pulled his shirt and jacket off. He shoved his arms out of the coat sleeves and let it fall to the floor, and his shirt soon followed. Inhaling the scent of her skin, he did the same, tugging insistently on her shirt. She tossed her tee and sweater into a sink, arching into his chest when he got them both off. Her breasts pushed against his skin, bound only by a bra, and he reached his hand around to pull open the clasp.

His thumb ran the length of the band, and to his dismay he found only more stretchy cotton. Had they really changed bras that much since he'd last slept with a woman?

"Front, Tom," she murmured into his hair—and damned if he didn't hear the smile in her voice—and pulled away just enough to snake a hand in between them. He looked down to see a small clasp at the front, hidden by lace. _That's unfair,_ he thought to himself. She really did always surprise him.

The material slackened and fell away with a flick of her thumb and forefinger, and he groaned at the sight. His hands immediately came up to cup her breasts, feeling goosebumps flare across her skin at the contact with his hands and the cold air of the bathroom. Palmer let out a sharp breath and arched into him, rolling her hips into his.

He kept one hand at her chest, reluctantly tearing the other one away to battle with their pants. His buckle and zipper obediently loosened for him, and he turned his attention to the jeans she was wearing.

Sarah curled into him, her lips pushing warm breath into his hair and her arms wrapped in a vice grip around his shoulders. The feel of skin and heat and her rapid heartbeat was making it difficult to concentrate, and his fingers shook with excitement as he popped the button on her pants and yanked at the zipper.

The moment they were loose, Palmer rose off the counter to shove down her jeans. It worked—sort of. The transfer of her weight from the counter to him was too great and too sudden, and they both tumbled to the ground. His arms tried to grab at something, but Sarah had a death grip on him that prevented him from moving.

He somehow landed on top of her, his mind still trying to register what was happening. She'd swapped their positions mid-fall, taking the brunt of the landing on Spartan bones. She didn't have a look of confusion on her face that he surely wore; instead she was grinning up at him.

"Oops," she murmured, her breath coming out in heavy waves. The warmth tickled his skin. He rose up on his hands, looking down at her. The floor of the bathroom wasn't necessarily sanitary, but the faded tiles only made her look more stunning by comparison. Flushed and smiling and half-clothed—she looked so much younger when she was smiling, he decided, and much more inviting.

She pushed up on an elbow and kissed him again, running her hands over his skin. He felt her touch falter when they found bumps and blisters, still fresh from cryo, and she unfortunately broke the kiss again to look at him.

"Do they hurt to touch?" she asked, tracing one on his shoulder.

He shook his head quickly, not wanting to keep her attention on them. "No, it's alright." He leaned forward and pressed his mouth to her jaw, tasting the light sheen of sweat on her skin. She clutched at him again, wrapping a leg around him and pressing their bodies close together.

He wasn't sure how they managed to shove the rest of their clothes off. The novelty of touching each other made any absence of contact, no matter how small, painful, but they somehow pulled off jeans, socks, and shoes, until they were both completely bare. He wondered if they should move back to the counter, but that would mean having to stop and move, so they stayed on the floor.

He'd wanted to go slow, originally. Any thoughts of being with Sarah had always been weaved with the idea of slow and thorough, since that usually worked out for him. But she made his blood boil in a way he wasn't aware his body could react, leaving him with little to no coherent head space. His actions were shaky and rushed, and he knew they'd both be left with marks and bruises by the time it was over.

And it didn't take long. The desperation of it had the both of them crying out, muffling the sound in each other's skin to keep quiet, until he felt the telltale clench in his belly, a white-hot spike that told him there was no going back now.

He pushed forward, pressing deep inside her and arching hard into her body. He heard Sarah call out to him, and the small part of his brain left intact hoped it meant she had reached the same peak he did, because he wasn't in a proper frame of mind to do much besides shiver on top of her and murmur her name.

A heavy, warm fog quickly settled over him when the shaking subsided, weighing down his bones and making it difficult to keep his eyes open. He was content to lie there forever, his head on her chest and listening to her heart slowly drum back to a normal beat. For the first time in years, he felt the worry that creased his brow ease, and his mind relax. No thoughts, no deadlines, no problems—only him and Sarah in this little bubble of sweaty warmth on the ground. The quiet soothed his soul.

Palmer's fingers traced the ugly path of scars on his back and shoulders, her hypersensitive fingertips finding the scarred flesh left behind by a lifetime of discomfort and swelling. The touch was featherlight, to the point that he almost couldn't feel it. He wondered if she even realised what she was doing.

"Tom?"

"Hmm?"

"Where?" she asked, her turn now.

"Here," he murmured back into her collarbone. He was too happy to move.

"It smells like urinal cakes in here," she whispered into his ear, and he laughed into her skin.

"I can't smell anything."

"Well I can," she replied, poking him in the ribs. "So move, Captain. I know you're a Navy officer, but you can't be _that_ lazy."

"Spartans are Navy too," he muttered, stalling for time.

"Not anymore, remember?" Her arms came up and encircled his shoulders, and she hauled them both up from the floor. He had to lean on her to get his balance, dizzy from the rapid transition from lying to standing.

"Want me to put your pants on too?" she asked, moving away from him to grab her shirt. The absence of her body left his side frigid.

"I think I can manage," he replied, blinking. He'd forgotten how energy-consuming sex was. He'd have to get back in shape. _A true burden,_ he thought dryly, watching Sarah slip into her jeans.

"Well stop staring and get dressed." She looked at him over her shoulder. "The sooner we leave, the sooner you can take them off again."

An enticing thought, and an inspiring one. He shoved his legs into his jeans, shivering whenever the material came into contact with the painfully sensitive nerves between his legs, his body not fully come down from its high yet. It really had been a while, he thought mournfully.

Sarah brushed her hair back with her fingers and trapped it into a ponytail, glancing at herself in the mirror for a moment before turning her eyes to him. The look she gave him made it difficult to finish dressing.

"That," she said slowly, stepping close to him. "Was good, Lasky. _Very_ good. But I'd rather we continue in a bed, or somewhere that doesn't smell like ass. So; where to, Captain?"

"Your hotel is closer," he murmured, not being able to help the hand that swept up her arm. "Anyone else bunking there?"

"A few, but it's still light out. We should be fine." She pressed her mouth to his ear. "And even if we aren't, I don't really care."

He would probably suffer a heart attack before the end of the night, since Palmer was doing an excellent job of making his cardiovascular system seize up. Not that he minded; at least he'd die a happy man.

"Lead the way, Commander," he murmured back.

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**AN:** Next few chapters should be pretty fluffy to make up for all the drama, so stay tuned!


	9. Dirty Deeds

**AN: **When I originally sat down to write this story, I had intended for it to be only a few smutty chapters long. It's snowballed into something with an actual _plot_, and this seems like it will become a full-blown story - this will still have a major focus on Lasky and Palmer, just with a smidgen more complexity than them simply getting it on in a bunch of random places.

The tl;dr version is: more drama, yay!

I also posted two other one-shots during my tiny hiatus with this story that cover a few other pairings I love to bits, ones I hope to write more about at some point. So, with my shameless self-plug over - happy reading, and any feedback is super duper appreciated!

**EDITS (April 13th/15): **Yup, major plot edits. First two fluff sections are fine, but I did a major revision on the last section. Did a bunch of re-strucuring - the core is still the same, just really refined the circumstances. Anyway, I'll mention it next chapter for those who didn't see this now. (Also, thank-you to firerwolf for the lovely plot talk/suggestions.)

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**Chapter Nine - Dirty Deeds **

He was in a state of semi-consciousness, ignorant of anything besides the warm body next to him and the texture of the high thread-count sheets tangled up in their legs. He felt her stir, leaning an elbow on her pillow and letting her other hand smooth over his skin.

Innocent enough, but her hand quickly dipped lower, and he sucked in a breath at her firm grip. "Jesus, Sarah…."

"All tired out?" she murmured in his ear, and curled her leg over his hips.

"You're going to kill me," he muttered, looking down at her probing fingers. "I don't even—_ah_—think I'm capable of _walking_ at the moment, let alone—"

"We'll see," she interrupted with a whisper, but let her hand be still on his skin for now. He was half-thankful she stopped; highly sensitive nerves made it almost painful to feel her hand on him, and her grip was _strong._ She was damn good at it, though.

She hummed and dropped her head back onto the pillow, rolling on her back and letting her eyes slip closed. There was a small smile on her face that spoke of a deep-rooted contentment. He tried to keep that image of her in his mind, so different from her usual hard-set features. He was the only one to see her this way, relaxed and sleepy. It created a warm pool in his belly, making it difficult to keep an idiotic grin off his face.

"You kept up pretty well," she said, not opening her eyes. "Better than you did at _Infinity's_ Fun Run, at least."

"There's a joke in there somewhere about slow and steady winning the race," he replied, grinning.

"Mhm," she hummed, sounding pleased. "You may not run fast, but you know your shit, Tom."

"I'll say the same to you."

"Being an ODST has its perks. Learn lots of freaky shit."

"So I've noticed," he said dryly.

"You're a squid though," she said, opening her eyes and turning to look at him. "Do all your fighting kilometres away from the actual battle. Did you spend all that time screwing while marines shot the guns for you?"

"Only when they weren't looking," he teased, grabbing her hand and squeezing her fingers. He smiled when she squeezed back. "Besides, I've got a few years on you. Slept with people who were actually alive _before _the Covenant glassed half of humanity."

She took the jibe in stride, moving out of her stupor and going into full attack mode now. "So then sleeping with me makes you a man-cougar."

"You don't seem to mind," he reminded her.

"Oh no," she agreed, shifting in bed again. Before he could blink, she was straddling his waist, grinning down at him. "Sleeping with a silver-tongued captain such as yourself also has its perks."

He raised a brow. "More double entendre? Didn't know they taught marines anything besides how to swear."

"If you think a joke about your tongue is classy wit, Tom Lasky, you're the man for me." A lovely flush coloured cheeks when she realised how that sounded, and his grin widened. He slid a hand up her waist, stopping just below her breast. He thumbed a purple scar on her ribs, answering her only with a smile. She looked down at his hands, following the path of an old scar on his wrist that disrupted the hair on his forearm with a finger.

"You look different now, up close," he said, more serious. "Now that I'm not peeking at you fresh out of the freezer."

She nodded in understanding. "I never knew it was this bad," she replied, tracing the ugly white scar tissue on his arm. "You made it sound like nothing."

"Needed to keep it that way. I couldn't risk another discharge order. I doubt they'd have let me go anyway, with the war going the way it was."

A brow crept up her forehead. "How's the one on your back?"

He felt his face flush a deep pink. "Fine," he said crisply. An embarrassment that he'd rather let die, and the sooner the better.

"I didn't mean to scratch it," she said, looking almost sheepish. "Bit of a mood killer, though it didn't seem to stop you."

He sighed. "Don't worry about it; it's not the first time it's happened." He realised his mistake the moment he said the words. Her expression instantly grew curious, and he braced himself.

"Oh really?"

"Yes," he said, hoping she would drop it. But he knew Sarah better than that.

"Sounds like she didn't react well, judging by the sourpuss look on your face," she offered, nudging him with a leg.

He settled deeper into the pillow, frowning. "Wasn't too long ago, really. Last rotation, before we set out for Installation 03, I met this girl in a bar." Palmer's brow reached her hairline, clearly amused, and he forged on. "Well, we uh, got along well, especially after I bragged a little about making XO on _Infinity_, and before long we ended up back at my hotel room. It was going pretty well—_really_ well, actually, until she grabbed my arm, and..." His faced heated with embarrassment. "And the blister on my arm burst, like you saw before.

"It wasn't big, or anything, and I told her the rashes weren't contagious, even showed her my medical file, but she started freaking out. Told me I was diseased, and scrubbed her hands under hot water while I tried to calm her down. She stormed out of my room after a few minutes, fuming, and told me to go see a doctor." He rubbed a hand through his hair. "Hook-ups are tricky, since I usually have to wait about a week until my rash calms down. Stupid of me not to, but… she seemed nice enough. Hot, too," he added under his breath.

Palmer's face had quickly turned serious, and he saw a hint of anger. "And I called you a blistered old man," she added, grimacing.

"I'm over it," he said, trying for a lighter tone. "Besides, you more than made up for it," he added, grinning.

She shook her head. "It's a wonder you slept with me."

"Slim pickings," he shot back. The dig had its intended effect, and she shoved his arm, smiling.

"Suppose I deserve that."

"I know you didn't mean it," he assured her, moving his hand higher up her body.

She looked down at the hand on her breast, grinning. "Ready again, are we?"

"Third time's the charm, isn't it?"

"Three's all you're aiming for?" She brought her body down, placing hands on either side of his head and letting her hair fall on his cheeks as she stared him in the eye. "A pity. I could go all night." Her hand found him again, smoothing her fingers over quickly hardening flesh, and the action choked whatever smart comment he'd been about to make.

* * *

Spartans were supposed to perform at optimum level with a lousy two-hour nap per forty-eight-hour cycle. Ever since she'd gone through The Big Change, she hadn't slept much. Not that that was a big difference from being an ODST or a marine, but at least she didn't feel exhausted all the time.

Today, however, she woke up with the sun directly in her face, letting her know she'd slept in. A bleary glance at the hotel clock told her she'd managed to catch nine hours of uninterrupted sleep. She tried to remember the last time she'd been allowed to sleep in, but was at a loss.

Sarah stretched on the bed, arching up and reaching out her limbs to full height, and felt her feet slip off the mattress. She gave a contented sigh when her joints popped, and settled back into the bed.

God, she felt good. About ten years younger, and for once she didn't wake up with a crick in her neck. If anything, her bones felt wobbly and loose, and the thought of _getting up_ from the bed and downy pillows felt like sacrilege.

Sarah noticed then that the person responsible for her waking up on the very _good_ side of the bed this morning wasn't there. She cast a glance over to where Lasky had passed out during the night, but he was nowhere to be seen. Sarah flexed her Spartan senses, and easily found him again.

She smelled food. And _coffee._ Maybe getting out of bed was heresy, but not drinking coffee would be an even greater affront. She swung her legs out from under the covers and stood up, sighing when she felt warm sun pour onto her skin from between the blinds on the window.

Sarah reached for her pants, and then stopped, grinning, standing up to her full height again. She had intended to just wear sweats and a tank, but thinking again, she stopped herself. Tom had been uncharacteristically verbose in his appreciation for her body, and she decided that a _good morning_ would have a far greater impact with the least amount of clothing on possible. So she stepped over the puddle of clothing on the floor and headed into the kitchen, bare as an egg.

His back was to her when she entered, his hands busy fiddling with the coffee machine. She saw fruit and pancakes and bacon piled onto two plates, and her already excellent mood managed to break a record high.

"Make all that by yourself?" she asked, moving further into the kitchen.

He looked up at her voice, not having heard her silent movements into the room. He looked over his shoulder, a small smile on his lips. "I can't take full cr—" His eyes practically jumped out of his head when he got a good look at her, the words dying on his tongue, and he quickly turned around.

She grinned, thoroughly enjoying herself, and took a step towards him. He looked almost scared, with his eyes darting rapidly over her body, unable to decide where to look first.

"Good morning," she whispered, placing her arms on either side of him and trapping him against the counter.

"No shit," he muttered, and she felt a rare laugh escape her. The sound spurred him into action, and he reached up for a kiss. She happily ducked her head, feeling something close to a purr rumble in her throat when his fingers scraped through her hair. Sarah pressed her body flush to his, pushing him against the counter.

Completely forgetting what he'd been doing a moment earlier, he moved his mouth to her neck. She curled her leg up, pushing her hips into his, and grinning at what she found pressing against the material of his pants.

"Good _morning,"_ she said again, into his ear. Oh yes, this was lovely. Especially when his hands began roaming around her skin….

With her cheek resting on his hair, she noticed the cup under the coffee machine behind them begin to overflow, and reached over his shoulder to flick off the power. Lasky had completely abandoned noticing anything beyond the body in front of him, but her Spartan mind left a few bits of brainpower to peripheral stimulus. Particularly the smell of bacon.

"Are we going to eat?" she asked, pulling away just enough to look at him. He hid his disappointment at the interruption well, but she caught a flash of it before he grinned at her.

"I was in the middle of that, actually."

"Very original," she shot back, and pulled her leg away from his waist. "But I'm hungry as hell, and breakfast smells amazing."

He straightened his shirt, and blew out a shaky breath. "You might want to put clothes on then, or we'll never eat."

She acquiesced—for now—shoving on a pair of jeans and a shirt while they sat down for breakfast.

It was… nice. Tom made her coffee, passed her a plate, and they both ate in an agreeable, comfortable silence. She'd catch him looking at her every so often, always when she was shoving a fork in her mouth or had the coffee cup blocking out half her face, and got a fluttering feeling in her gut when he smiled and looked back down at his food. The morning managed to be even nicer than the night before—and the night had been _good_—and it scared the shit out of her.

"So—"

He looked up from his eggs, and she stopped short, trying to pick her words carefully. _Choosing what comes out of your mouth instead of just blurting everything out, Palmer? He's rubbing off on you._

"So," she tried again, clearing her mouth with a swig of coffee. "What… is this, exactly?"

He raised a brow. "Eggs benedict and peameal bacon, I think. I just ordered a breakfast special from the hotel dire—"

"Very funny," she cut in. "I meant—_this._ Sitting together, eating, fucking like rabbits—" He grinned at the last part, and to her eternal embarrassment she actually _blushed._ "And _you_ becoming the biggest smart-ass on two legs."

He wiped his mouth, sitting back in the leather-back breakfast stool. "It's… I don't know. More than just friends?" he offered.

"What happens when leave is over? Do we… stop doing this?"

"Do you want to stop?"

She didn't really have to think hard on that one. "Not really. If you don't, I mean."

"Then we won't," he answered easily. "We just have to be careful when we get back on _Infinity_."

"So I'm… right in assuming this is more than just a regular hook-up?"

"It feels more than that," Tom replied, his voice quiet. "For me, at least."

She nodded, the closest she could get to agreement. Oh, she agreed with him, all right—she just wasn't sure about the whole lovey-dovey declarations of burning passion and feeling. Saying anything more permanent than "you're a good lay" usually ended in disaster for her soon after. Either they died, or fucked off. Not that it mattered in the end—she was left alone all the same.

"You okay?"

She blinked. "Yeah, yeah. Just… this is weird. Really weird."

He nodded. "I know. Good weird, though. I hope," he added with a mutter.

She grinned. "Oh, definitely good weird. I might have to sleep with you some more to sort it out, though."

"I'm sure I'll survive," he said dryly, finishing his coffee.

Sarah looked pointedly at the bruises on his arms. "Will you?"

"What, these? They'll go away. It's no big deal."

"But I hurt you."

He shrugged, clearly not concerned. "The payoff is worth it, believe me."

She sighed. "You have to tell me when I'm hurting you. I could kill you if I'm not careful."

"What a way to go."

"I'm being serious, Tom."

He raised his hands. "Okay, I promise." He shot a look at her plate. "All done?"

They cleaned up their mess and drank the rest of the coffee pot—he'd bought _excellent_ coffee grounds—and found themselves standing in the kitchen a few minutes later, unsure of what to do next.

She had a good idea on how to rectify that.

"I'm going for a shower," she said, and saw him instantly grow more interested.

"Oh yeah?"

"There's room enough for two in there," she said lowly, then sauntered off to the bathroom. She shrugged out of her shirt and let it fall to the ground as she went, then bent down and shoved off her jeans. She heard him suck in a sharp breath behind her.

"Guess I need a shower, too," he said, much closer now. She felt his hands on her waist, pressing her into his body, which was unfortunately still covered in clothing.

_Not for long if I can help it._

* * *

The amount of data she had at her fingertips sometimes still frightened her. She was as omniscient as a human being could possibly be without ascending to godhood, and occasionally it felt like she was watching on behind a bush while the human race collectively pick their noses when they decided no one was looking.

_Semper Vigilans._

The feeling never lasted long, though.

However, when she found a packet of files on her desk this morning—something she would thank BB for later—Serin felt something approaching surprise.

"A woman working in a Scottish bar asking about the Infinity," she murmured to the room, sitting down at her desk. "She is obviously not just a waitress, I take it."

_Very_ interestingly enough, the woman was the exact opposite. A leader of a small band of rebels scoping out UNSC shipping yards, both on Earth and dry-dock satellites orbiting the planet.

"Not the first time a Scotsman's rebelled against king and country," BB deadpanned, his cube appearing on her desk.

"Nor the last, I daresay," she replied dryly. "But they aren't interested in the ship itself. Good. Poor thing's been raided by enemy forces enough over the past few years."

"Rather, the people inhabiting the ship," BB supplied. It was all in the file, but she humoured him, and gave him the chance to give her the highlights himself. His tone, or lack thereof, suggested that he recognised and appreciated the gesture. "Senior naval officers specifically, excluding the Spartans. They seem rather keen on avoiding the Spartan-IVs."

"But not their sex toys, I see." Not surprising, really. She had suspected Palmer and Lasky would engage in decidedly _un_professional extracurricular activities for a long time, and it was nice to be right.

"I believe they are targeting him because of his senior position, ma'am, and not his proclivity for seeing Sarah Palmer naked."

"That almost sounded like a joke, BB."

"Thank you, Admiral."

She sobered quickly, looking back down at the file. "How imminent is this threat?"

"Very, I would say. The plan to beat him to death in fourteen hours' time. Twenty-two hundred hours in Scotland's time."

"This information couldn't have been gathered sooner?"

"They weren't aware he was on Earth until fifty-three hours ago. This was an early catch."

She hummed. "I'll have to stop that, then." Serin moved to grab her comm, and then paused, thinking. Did she? Did she have to stop it? Lasky was a good, honourable man—but he was also a disobedient one. And sympathetic to Halsey. A dangerous combination, especially now that the bitch was working with 'Mdama.

"Admiral?"

"I'm thinking, BB."

"I would suggest something."

She raised a brow. "Yes?"

"Perhaps… a compromise. Allow them to attack him, but not kill him. Inform Palmer; she'll kill them the moment she knows they intend to hurt him."

"And why would I let them attack him?"

"Because you want them to. That's why you paused."

She smiled. "Think you know me, do you?"

"More than most, I can say," the AI said casually.

"I admit, seeing him taken down a peg would be nice. It might even keep Palmer more in line, if I tip her off as a favour." She tapped her lip. "Do you know where they plan to attack him?"

"This band does not seem particularly structured. The only thing they've hammered out is that they want to attack him at night, outside near the Broadford Grand Hotel that he's now staying at with Palmer. They've managed to get some information on him, like basic location, but they're small, and do not have the resources to hack his planner or comm line."

"Where is the nearest information's dealer in Scotland?"

"Funny," BB said, sounding thoroughly unamused. "He seems to be located inside the Grand as well." _Almost like you planned it,_ his tone said, and Serin allowed herself a small smile on his behalf.

She nodded. "Give them what they need to set up a calculated attack through the info dealer; set up a meeting with them. Give them anything traceable—if he's going out that night, where he's going, what time, and with whom. Report back when you've confirmed that, and I'll ready a message to Palmer."

BB said not a word, only hovering blankly on her desk, but she knew he was already hard at work. For her part, she pulled up the local intranet in Broadford and found Lasky's comm ID. Tracking his browsing history, she tagged the message she was about to send out as a related article to his past session, and began typing.

_So it begins._


	10. Done Dirt Cheap

**AN: **Just a small, important note before you start reading - I did a re-haul of the last section of last chapter, setting up a bunch of stuff that happens in this one. If you read Chapter 9 prior to those edits, I direct you back to it. I put up an AN last chapter with more detail, but I highly suggest going back as you might be confused. I don't usually like doing post-publishing edits, but it was needed.

And if you've seen the edits already, ignore me completely! Happy reading all!

* * *

**Chapter Ten - Done Dirt Cheap**

Less than twenty-four hours ago, he'd been annoyed and a bit worried at the prospect of two entire months of leave time, with nothing to do but _think._ No reports or audits or ship-wide events to run. He couldn't remember the last time he had the freedom to spend time on his own, and the lack of structure left him feeling directionless and bored.

And then, of course, he spent the night with Palmer and suddenly two months seemed a terribly short time to spend as he pleased.

"You can't move the knight there," he reminded her, suppressing a grin.

Sarah glared at the board. "Why not?"

"It can only move in an L shape. If you moved it here," he pointed. "You can take my pawn. Usually though, it's better to have them in the centre of the board, so you can block my pieces from moving."

Palmer frowned and rubbed her chin. He knew she liked complicated games, but she wasn't taking to chess very well.

"But if I take that pawn, then that thing can take the knight, right?"

"The bishop? No, it can only move diagonally."

Sarah huffed out a breath. "I liked it better when I was beating your ass at poker."

He allowed himself to grin now. "Don't like losing, Palmer?"

"Only when I have no damn clue _why_ I'm losing," she said, shaking her head.

Around 1500, they managed to finally get dressed and begin thinking about doing something else besides burning calories in bed. After lunch Tom had suggested chess, and after getting into a brief argument about how the game was _not_ just for grumpy old navy officers, he began teaching her how to play.

"Well, if it's too _complicated_ for a marine, I under—_ow, Jesus._ watch where you aim your bloody foot," he grumbled, narrowly avoiding a kick to the tenders from under the coffee table.

"Don't worry, I won't injure any vital bits. You wouldn't be any use to me if I did." She looked a lot more pleased with herself than she did a minute ago—likely because she could outmatch him in anything physical, especially when it came to potshots at his manhood.

"Very comforting," he muttered, rubbing his thigh. He stood up from the carpet, where they'd been sitting around the coffee table to play chess, and stretched. He flexed his toes, his foot having gone numb from sitting for so long.

_Sitting around._ What an absurd concept.

"No more chess then. What did you want to do?"

She leaned back against the couch cushions, frowning. "I don't know. It's so weird, having this much free time. I didn't realise how much damn paperwork I had as a Commander until I didn't have to do it anymore. If I'd known beforehand I'd never have left Lieutenant."

He nodded. "I know. Normally I'd be doing inventory audits or going over star charts with Roland. I wonder how he's coping with the Navy running all that maintenance on _his_ ship," he mused, smiling faintly. Only a few months on _Infinity_ and the AI had already declared eternal ownership of the vessel.

"Harassing everyone on board, probably." Sarah copied him, standing up and stretching, only when she did it, her fingers almost touched the ceiling. The passing once-over he gave her as she cracked her knuckles didn't escape her notice, and a slow grin formed on her face.

"So that's how it's gonna be? Sit down then, Captain."

He raised a brow, but decided to obey and plunked down on the couch, the sofa far more comfortable than the carpet. Palmer sauntered around the table and knelt down in front of him. She was eye level with him in this position, and gave him a long, slow kiss.

He huffed out a breath when she pulled back. They'd spent a great deal of time sleeping together, more than was probably healthy for him, but already his heart happily began to pulse in his ears and his body tensed in anticipation just after that brief exchange.

She kissed him again, this time her hands going to his pants and expertly pulled the meek drawstring of the sweats he was wearing. It made him wonder why they even bothered with putting on clothes in the first place.

Palmer slipped a hand into his pants and grinned at what she found. "You always packing, Lasky? Or am I just that good?"

"Bit a both, I expect," he managed, her fingers flexing around him through his boxers, exacerbating his condition.

"Guess that skipper's body armour covers a lot," she commented, freeing him from his underwear and pulling his sweats down to his knees.

He let his head fall back against the couch. Her hands continued to move over him—her fingers ran up his thighs, her nails scratching lightly, and massaged the sensitive flesh around his member. She placed kisses on his skin, making him twitch with each new contact of her mouth. _Oh yes, you are that good._ He silently blessed the ODSTs and their promiscuous behaviour, especially when her hand glided up his member and the tip of her tongue darted out to taste him.

"Christ," he muttered, catching her eye before she brought the head of his cock into her mouth. If he'd known she had this in mind, he would've abandoned any attempts to teach her how to play chess—she'd only been playing to humour him, anyway.

Several key senses began to shut down as she continued her conquest, the combination of lips, tongue, and soft fingers making him numb to anything north of his groin. His hands tangled into her hair, brushing it out of her face. She'd shoot him a look occasionally, a smoldering glance that sent heat lancing through him and only making it more difficult not to just explode right then.

_Perhaps you're too good,_ he thought, his legs tensing up. He felt himself toeing the edge already, a laughably short amount of time, but he didn't have the heart to ask her to ease up. _Think about crewmen reports or engine readouts or cryo or someth_—

"Tom?" His name was dragged out, as if she were speaking to a stubborn child. He looked down at her, only now realising she'd stopped. And that she'd repeated his name a few times already.

"What?"

"Your comm. It's ringing right in my ear," she said, propping her chin on his leg and smiling.

"Oh." He untangled a hand reluctantly, glaring at the offending watch. Happy that she no longer had an obnoxious beeping in her ear, she continued in her ministrations. The sound that came out of him resembled something of a dying animal at the resumption of sensation, and he had just enough thought left to flick the alarm to silent. _Whatever it is I'll deal with it later. Shouldn't be long anyway…._

When it finally did culminate into a spectacular end a few moments later, his body going almost completely limp and Sarah leaning against his thigh, wiping her mouth with a sleeve, Palmer prodded him in the abdomen.

"So is the ship on fire or something?"

His brows drew together, the question registering at a sluggish pace in his brain. The Spartan didn't seem to understand the recovery period involved after receiving a blowjob, a _fantastic_ one at that, or she did and chose to ignore it in favour of teasing him. He thought the latter was likely true, but did his best to answer.

"I haven't checked."

"That's not very professional of you," she chided, nipping his leg.

At that he managed to raise a brow in mock indignation. "I don't think you're in a position to judge, Commander."

"My job title also does not include lathering you in blister cream, but I suffer my unorthodox duties all the same."

"That's a big word."

"Spartans are too busy winning wars to learn fancy words," she shot back, her hand dangerously close to his member again. It was a near-suicidal thing, badmouthing a Spartan who quite literally had him by the balls, but since her grip usually ended in putting him into a coma he decided it was worth the risk.

"But you've spent enough time around officers to learn those fancy words, huh?"

Her grin widened. "You've given me an adequate mouthful of them, Captain."

He snorted, unable to help the fit of… giggles, for lack of a better word, her words brought on. He was riding on the high he still hadn't fully come down from, and Sarah's feeble joke was enough to almost put him in stitches.

She smiled and kissed him around a laugh, standing up again. She watched him quickly regain control of his lungs, a smile on her face.

"You should do that more often," she said, heading for the kitchen.

"Do what?" he asked over the sofa, watching her.

"Laugh," she called back, and he heard her filling a glass of water. "Makes you look young. Well, _almost."_

He smiled, a stray hum of laughter escaping him. He wondered when he'd last laughed like that, and struggled to remember.

She plunked back down on the couch, water in hand. She was swishing it thoughtfully in her mouth, her eyes going to his comm. "So," she said after she gulped it down. "What's the latest problem?"

"It wasn't on a priority alert, so it shouldn't be too serious." He opened his comm, the holographic display expanding in front of him. The message he saw surprised him, though it was a welcome substitute for some issue with _Infinity._

"It's from Orenski," he said, opening the message. The subject only read _Class Reunion!,_ a choice of words he found odd and morbidly hilarious.

"Who?" Sarah tipped the glass back and emptied it, letting the plastic cup drop from her hand and somehow have it land perfectly on the table.

"From Corbulo," he answered offhand, reading the rest of the message.

_03.04.2558 / 1642 SMT _

_**SUBJECT: **__Class Reunion! _

_**CLASSIFICATION LEVEL:**_ _NA_

_**SENDER:**_ _CDR April Orenski / 45353-09738-AO_

_Tom,_

_Got in touch with Sully, and he said he'd love for the three of us to get together for a beer. He's already booked a flight to Earth and should be in Scotland by 1930 tonight. Perks of being a spook, I guess. Love if you could make it - we're planning on meeting in the bar I found you at the other night. No RSVP required, just show up ready to pay a big tab with that nice Captain's salary of yours._

_\- Orenski_

"Class Reunion?" Sarah read off. "I thought you said there were only a few survivors."

"Just three," he replied. "It's a bit sudden. That's only two hours away." He glanced at Palmer. "It would be nice to see Sully though. I haven't seen him since we were debriefed after Circinius IV was glassed."

"Go, then. Catch up." She brushed her hair back and swept it into a ponytail. "I know how it is."

He nodded, looking back at the message. He quickly replied to it, saying he'd be there, and decided that even if it wasn't a formal meeting, he should probably wear something more respectable than sweatpants. He re-tied his sweats before standing up and heading to the bedroom.

"I shouldn't be out too late. Not exactly a wild party," he called, shoving into a pair of jeans.

"I'll be pining for you endlessly while you're away," she called back, and he imagined her sweeping a hand over her brow in grief.

"I still have an hour or so. Don't get too worked up."

"If that's the case, stop putting on clothes. I'm not done with you yet."

* * *

_03.04.2558 / 1653 SMT _

_**SUBJECT: **__RE: Class Reunion! _

_**CLASSIFICATION LEVEL:**_ _NA_

_**SENDER:**_ _CAPT Thomas J. Lasky / 98604-72690-TL_

_April,_

_Sounds good. I'll meet up with you guys there around 2000._

_\- Tom_

"They're getting sloppy," she said, re-reading the message. "He replied with his navy comm. We've got his tags now."

"Locking in," Nguyen said beside her, tapping on a datapad. She shoved a strand of hair impatiently out of her face. "We've got a date, time, and a way to track his comm. I can't access it directly, but as long as he's logged on to Waypoint or the local Intranet I can see his tags. It's a few hours ahead of schedule, but it might be suspicious to ask him to change the time now."

"It's more than we've had in a while," Murray replied. "It's enough." _It has to be. _She leaned back against the worn chair of the small office the two women were shoved into. A naval captain—one that commanded the UNSC's flagship. A big score, especially on Earth. The bounty would be big. She tried not to imagine what she'd do with the money, not wanting to get ahead of herself, but looking around the dingy, closet-sized office that smelled like mold and old clothing, dreams of wealth were difficult to ignore. Her loyalties were true to the Cause; she wasn't some simple hooligan that beat men for money. The bounty only fueled her desire to get this done, and it was a _big_ bounty.

"Sid's crew said he'd help take him down," Nguyen said, cutting her out of her daydreaming.

"Now that we did all the leg work for him, tracking the fucker," she muttered. "How many is he giving us?"

"Four guys. Lasky doesn't look like a special forces guy either. That should be more than enough."

Murray nodded. "Good."

The younger woman looked up from her computer, a hopeful smile on her face. "Twenty K for each of us. Can you imagine it? I can finally put Jake through school."

"And I can get an office that doesn't smell like shit," the Scotswoman replied, returning the smile. "But don't make any plans with your brother yet. This thing isn't done."

The woman nodded. "Two hours and four minutes til go time." Nguyen turned back to the computer, going back into full business mode again.

"Send Sid the bare minimum," Murray barked before the other woman could ask her. "This is need-to-know. I don't want to chance them running off with the score themselves. Feed them bits until the green light, and make sure you save the messages in case we need some proof of what we got on Lasky." Risky to save anything about their plan, but she would not let Sid pretend he did all the work and not give them a cut. They'd done the hardest part of the job, after all. The meeting with the info dealer had been brief—and pricey—but the content of the message they'd sent Lasky and access to the address of his naval comm made everything a thousand times easier.

"Will do."

Now for the hard part. They had to sit there and wait.

* * *

As always, the sky was dark with swollen rain clouds, making him grateful for his jacket. Sometimes being on a ship for long periods of time would give him a bad case of cabin fever, but he couldn't imagine living in a place with almost no sunshine.

He'd thought about messaging Sully, but realised he didn't have his comm ID and likely wouldn't have access to an ONI officer's personal comm anyway. His pay grade was high enough that he could ask for it and not get any harsh looks, but decided it was better to just speak to the man in person.

He was nervous. He wasn't entirely sure how _that _was possible, since Palmer had milked every ounce of stress and nerves out of him, but he still felt apprehensive about meeting with the only other two survivors of Corbulo. Even if Orenski had said nothing had changed, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was meeting with a group of familiar strangers.

It wasn't a long walk to the bar, but it was miserable. Rain fell in big drops, soaking easily through his jacket in minutes. He could've taken a cab, but he needed time to think.

He wondered what he'd say to Sully—if he should apologize for not keeping in touch, or pretend nothing had even happened and that they were simply long lost friends meeting together for the first time in years. It also made him wonder if Sully's time in ONI had changed him. Every operative he'd spoken to always had the same sourpuss look on their faces, and used a tone of voice that said _I know something you don't._ He remembered the twitchy, irreverent kid Sully had been, and found it impossible to imagine him with an old frown and tired eyes. But the war had been long, and some days he felt like an old man himself. April looked like she'd barely aged a day, and it made him feel even more ancient in comparison.

_Maybe Sarah's right—I do think too much. _

The thought of her made him smile as he turned the corner, the bar now in sight. With the danger of sounding dramatic, he decided that these had been perhaps the best two days of his life. She was the break he needed from his duties, the endless problems and conflicts and orders, and sleeping with a soft woman in his arms had been more restorative than she could ever know.

A street light flickered on just as he stepped under it, illuminating the rain and making it shine in the yellow light, giving him a pause from his thoughts. He looked up, watching it flicker, and when it died again, he was no longer standing under the pole.

His head hit the pavement with a sickening thud, and he tasted the murky water of an alleyway draw into his mouth. His mind lagged, trying to understand where he was—he'd been standing a second ago. Then his hands were being drawn behind his back and instinct took over.

He flipped over, the world blurring around him, and shoved his heel into the figure standing over him. He heard a grunt, his foot contacting soft skin, and he got his hands under him to stand up.

Another blow to his head left his ears ringing and immobilized him, and he saw two more people appear in the dark. They each grabbed one of his legs and dragged him further into the alley, gravel cutting into his back when his jacket rode up. He opened his mouth to yell, and someone shoved a cloth into his mouth, just far enough to make his gag reflex kick in.

There were three or four of them, he couldn't tell. There was no light in the alley, so dark he could barely see the people holding his legs. He struck out blindly with a fist behind him, landing a glancing blow on the brow of the man who'd gagged him. He went to remove it from his mouth, and the first attacker grabbed his wrist and twisted it savagely. He yelled around the cloth, hearing and feeling the bones in his wrist break. He received a third punch to the temple and fell limply to the ground, cradling his wrist near his chest.

"Hey, you fuck. She said no face. They wanna make sure they can recanize 'im." He heard a furious whisper from one of the men holding his legs. He kicked out to dislodge the grip, but it only earned him a kick to the ribs from another man, forcing the air out of his lungs.

"They can do that with DNA sampling shit." The fourth man—there were definitely four—grabbed his collar and pulled his face close to his. The man's breath was stale and warm, and Lasky felt fingers sweep over his face and neck, sickly soft. "He's pretty, too. I wanna break his nose."

Tom snarled at him from around the cloth, which was now soaked with his own saliva and tasted like a musty rag, and raised his good hand to punch him. The first man grabbed both his hands, twisting hard on his broken wrist again, eliciting a damp howl from Lasky.

"Shut up. You want your money? Do what she says."

The fourth man's breath washed over his face in a disappointed sigh. "Gimme the rope then."

He struggled to keep his eyes open. Blood washed over his face from the repeated blows to the head, and bright pinpoints of light winked in and out of his vision. He fought the heaviness in his lids, thrashing as the men bound him, but every time he moved they gave a kick to his stomach and knocked the wind out of him. When they bound his wrists, the rope sunk deep into his skin and pressed against snapped bones, but the only response he could muster was a dull moan.

When they began to beat him, he slipped quickly into unconsciousness. The pain was too great, and every time he moved, it only made it worse. He couldn't think, couldn't breathe, and couldn't see. Every sense darkened around him, until he felt nothing.


	11. Semper Fortis

**Chapter Eleven - Semper Fortis**

_03.04.2558 / 2004 SMT_

_**SUBJECT: **__N/A_

_**CLASSIFICATION LEVEL:**_ _EYES ONLY TOP SECRET (ONI EXEC-7-12-019 DIRECTIVE)_

_**SENDER:**_ _[REDACTED]_

_COMMANDER SARAH PALMER [SN: 65287-98303-SP],_

_You are hereby ordered by CINCONI to follow the coordinates listed below and execute all targets with lethal force pursuant to the Naval Counter-Insurgence Act [Article 13765-09-10]. Insurrectionist OPERATION: BLACKOUT has been identified as a rebel plot to assassinate Naval Officer Captain Thomas J Lasky [SN: 98604-72690-TL] per local insurrectionist leader Karen Murray's..._

_(57.240614, -5.903275)_

Sarah stopped reading after she saw Lasky's name and flicked her eyes to the bottom of the message, reading and re-reading the string of numbers listed under the text. They looked oddly innocuous, as if Osman was inviting her to tea instead of sending her orders to execute an insurgent cell living in backwater Broadford. She had gotten this message only a few minutes after Tom had left, and as soon as she'd seen the classification stamped on it, her blood had run cold.

After reading it over again, she realised what the numbers were. They were lat-long coordinates. A search on them quickly confirmed what she already knew. It was where Lasky was heading to meet with his old friends.

She had no memory of putting jeans and shoes on, no memory of running down the several flights of stairs to the ground floor, didn't remember the gobsmacked looks of civilians watching her as she sprinted past them. She wished for her MJOLNIR armour, wished for a gun, but didn't dare stop to find a weapon. Didn't stop to _think._ All she was capable of doing was running. And hunting.

_I __**am **__a weapon._

It took her three minutes and seventeen seconds to arrive at the outside of the bar. She glanced around wildly, wondering if he had gone in or they'd caught him outside. She held her breath and closed her eyes, willing her heart to slow down and searching with her other heightened senses.

Her heart spiked in panic when she found nothing. Was it a trick? A cruel prank? Or was Tom already dead? The rain made it more difficult, muting scents and sounds and sight. She went completely still, focusing. At best she would find him inside with a confused look on his face. At worst—

Blood. She smelled blood. And heard the distinct smack of knuckles on flesh. Her right, four o'clock, six point two metres. She opened her eyes again and turned.

Four contacts in the alleyway—no, five. One was prone, and very still. _Tom. _The other four moved with deliberate brutality against the fifth. Sarah lunged.

The first man she killed never saw her. Brain matter painted the side of the building, splattering onto her face and blindly her left eye momentarily. The second man was able to respond with a wide-eyed look of terror before she slammed her fist into his chest. Bones broke beneath her fingers, the ribcage piercing his heart and killing him instantly. Two contacts down.

Three and Four lived an additional eight seconds longer. Three grabbed the lid of a trashcan, but only managed to raise it above waist level when she struck out with a kick to his pelvis. He howled in agony, doubling over, and she used the heel of her raised foot and slam his face into the ground.

Four had the wherewithal to run, heading down the alleyway. He made it three steps when she was on him, latching onto his back and using the palms of her hands to twist his neck. The force sent his head in a gruesome one-eighty, dead eyes glaring at her in a bent angle. She leapt off his body and he fell to the ground with a dull thud. Four down.

Sarah turned from her quarries, finally allowing herself to look at Tom. She lunged at him too, her hands going to his face and removing the cloth they'd shoved into his mouth.

"Captain," she barked out, her fingers going to his neck. Her own heart jumped when she found a pulse on him, weak and dim. Her hands untied the bonds at his wrists and legs, feeling her lips curl in a snarl when she saw the state of his left hand. _He won't use it ever again._

"Lasky," she said, quieter now. She rolled him onto his back after confirming his spine wasn't damaged, shaking his bloodied shoulder. "Tom."

_It's happening, just like it always does. Just like you said to him. He's leaving you, like everyone else does._

"Tom, _wake _up." She looked up from his unresponsive body, looking for any other possible attackers. Something she could _kill,_ a problem she could fix.

Finding herself alone, she slid her hands under his body, scooping him into her arms and pressing him to her chest. His head lolled and she swallowed a sob. She tucked it into her shoulder, smoothing away hair that was congealed with dirt and blood, and moved out of the alleyway.

She wouldn't take him to a civvie hospital. It was ten kilometres away and she had serious doubts his body would survive being jostled in her arms as she ran. The _Infinity _was even farther away, And she didn't have much faith in civilian emergency responses.

_What do I do? Oh god, what do I do?_

Palmer had no medical pack, no biofoam. She didn't have a single fucking bandaid on her. She'd left without even thinking of grabbing anything. Out of options, she ran into the bar.

The door slammed open when she used her foot to shove it out of her way, making the bartender look up with a sharp glare. "Call the authorities," she ordered the woman behind the counter, feeling dozens of eyes on her and hearing the bar go deathly quiet.

The woman's eyes widened. "What happened to him?"

"Call!" she barked, and several people flinched. The woman sprang into action, grabbing her comm and opening up an emergency display.

Sarah kicked a table out of the way, knocking drinks over and upsetting two patrons. She saw one open his mouth, then close it and shove out of his seat when she glared at him. She put Tom's body down on the now-clear floor space, straightening him out and keeping his head still. There was a lot of blood seeping from a blow to the temple, and a deep gash cut down the length of his face. Bits of rock were embedded into his cheek, and she realised with another flare of rage that they'd just shoved him into the dirt and bound him like an animal.

"Get me bandages and alcohol," she said to the man standing still behind her, and looked up at the bartender to ask her for a needle and thread if she had one. Sarah could hear whispers of "oh god, what happened?" and "is he dead?". She wanted to yell at them to be quiet—_their_ world wasn't falling apart around them, bleeding out on the goddamned floor. _They_ didn't have to face any fucking consequences if she let him die. _They _didn't know anything.

Her eyes slipped from the bartender's profile to her comm's screen. She read the letters backwards, the display not facing her, but read it nonetheless. The woman was reporting a parking violation outside of her bar, not a man bleeding to death on the floor.

"What are you doing?"

The woman looked up from the screen, her eyes widening when she realised Sarah had seen what she was doing, then bolted into the back room. Palmer vaulted over the counter and shoved the back door open hard enough to knock its hinges off. The barrel of a gun pressed to her ear, and her hand shot out to grab the woman's hand. The bartender screamed in pain when Sarah broke her elbow, and she dragged her back out to the front, the pistol pressed to her temple.

"Call the fucking authorities!" she yelled, twisting the woman's arm and making her cry out. Several people screamed and ducked under tables, several more running out, but she saw someone call, and this time they did it correctly.

_Fucking civilians._

* * *

Martial law was no longer in effect on Earth now that the war was over, but that didn't mean the police weren't confused as hell on what to do with a Spartan officer covered in blood. They settled for putting her in a holding cell while they huddled around the front desk and pointed angrily at screens she couldn't see.

But none of that mattered. _Nothing_ mattered, except one small detail.

_He is alive. He is alive. He is alive._

She repeated it like a mantra, the only thing keeping her from shaking, and used the sentence to time the flow of her breathing. It worked, mostly, or at least enough to not send her into a panic again. The ambulance had come to take him away, and it had taken everything she had not to break away from the police cuffing her and jump into the back of the ambulance. But doctors had a hold of him now, so she could keep her head on straight. For now.

She had seen a lot of dead people before, even more wounded. Many far worse off than how she'd found Tom—he had all of his limbs, and his guts were still inside his body. But he'd been so _still,_ and so damn pale, his skin feeling like paper under her fingers. Skin that had been flushed and warm and firm just hours before.

Palmer spent most of her time in the cell thanking the closest thing to a god that she had, Admiral Osman. It hadn't technically stated in the message _who_ had contacted her, but she could put two and two together. ONI had saved Tom's life, however way they'd found out. She wasn't a spook; she just shot in the direction they pointed. And she'd lick Osman's boots til the day she died because of it.

She could hear the officers arguing quietly outside; the local police station was laughably small. Palmer could understand, though. She could kill them all with her ring finger were she so inclined, and was part of a branch so new the brass hadn't yet written down all the terms and conditions for it on paper yet. _And _she had killed four people and taken a fifth person hostage.

_A fucking rebel. I took a rebel hostage, I killed rebels. _The Big Bosses had called off the war and now it was suddenly illegal to kill people again, especially in front of civilians, a fact she was still getting used to. _Even if it means protecting the captain of the UNSC's flagship, the closest the military has to a goddamned saint._

She _could _show them the orders she was sent, and then they would free her; military action was outside of civilian control. But Palmer liked her head to stay on her shoulders, and the fact that she hadn't seen that level of classification attached to a message before made her extremely aware of the consequences of its contents being shown to anyone else, especially civvies.

So she sat in a police holding cell for a total of twenty-three minutes before ONI arrived, smooth officers in black suits and stern faces, informing the local police that the investigation now fell under their jurisdiction.

Palmer was greeted by a dark-skinned man bearing the mark of ONI, for once a welcome sight. He looked at her through the bars, gaze unblinking. "With me, Commander Palmer. The Admiral would like to speak with you."

_Judgement Day awaits._ "What's the status of Captain Lasky?" she asked, ducking under the low-hanging frame of bars. She noted that her voice was higher than normal, and swallowed in reflex. _Spartan calm, Spartan strong._ The police eyed her warily as the ONI officer lead her out of the station, and it was then that she finally realised that she was still covered in the blood of the four men she'd killed in the alleyway. _They'll have fun cleaning that up._

"In surgery, the last we were informed. Alive and mostly stable, ma'am. This way."

Palmer tried not to let the relief show, and held her breath to keep her from releasing a big sigh. Tom was alive, and she would deal with any of the nasty bits later. Her thoughts were still scattered enough that she wasn't afraid of the fact that she would be speaking to Osman in a few moments. Probably a good thing. All she felt now was a cold calm settling over her, the same one that always accompanied wrapping up a mission and waiting for a debriefing before celebrating or letting herself feel any sort of peace.

Immediately outside the station was an appropriately sleek-looking vehicle, stamped with ONI's trademark triangular logo. The colour of the car was a deep matte black, so seamless and muted that it looked almost like it the body of the vehicle was covered in felt. It was unsettling to look at, which was probably the intended effect.

She ducked low again to get into the back seat, two other officers getting in with her and speeding off to wherever she would be debriefed by Osman.

"Your comm, ma'am," one of the said, looking over the shoulder of the shotgun seat and holding out a hand. She detached hers from her wrist and handed it to him. The man ran some kind of scanner over it and she watched it shut off and turn on again, now displaying factory settings.

He handed it back without a word, and she frowned down at the screen. They'd wiped it. Not surprising, since she'd been contacted by ONI. They probably had the message on self-destruct anyway, but she supposed intelligence agencies could never be too careful. _Or too paranoid._

She cleared her throat, slipping the device back on. "When can I see the Captain?"

"After you're finished speaking with the Admiral. There's a number of things you still need to be briefed on."

_Like how to properly keep my mouth shut about everything that just happened._ Silence was her answer, and it filled the empty space until they arrived at the docks twenty-five minutes later, and she was escorted onto one of ONI's many corvettes. She saw the name of the vessel before she went through the airlock.

_The UNSC _Whisper. _How appropriate._

They handed her a change of clothes, a plain crewmen uniform that she changed into after an unpleasant decontamination shower, and was ushered into an empty room devoid of any furnishings or windows. The officers didn't stay with her, and as soon as the door closed, a panel on the right wall flickered and came to life.

"_Commander Palmer."_ Osman's voice filtered through, sounding oddly casual for CINCONI.

She gave a sharp salute. "Admiral."

"_Captain Lasky is alive, and the one rebel you didn't kill has been taken into custody for questioning." _Osman straightened in the video feed, and allowed a twitch of her mouth. "_Good work, Spartan."_

"Thank you, ma'am. And… thank you for the message. I got there just in time." Sooner would have been better, but she wasn't in a position to criticise the timing of the information.

"_It wasn't intended to spare your heart."_ Ah, there was The Admiral Voice.

Sarah made sure not to let anything on her face show. _She knows, dammit. Of course she knows about Tom and I._ If that revelation was meant to scare her, it was working. "Even so, I'm glad I didn't have to bury another friend today."

"_It was good we found it when we did. I almost didn't have time to send it to you." _

Sarah wasn't well versed in spook-speak, but she heard the underlying message well enough. "Any more news on Innie movement in the area that we should be concerned with, ma'am? I can have all of my Spartans mobilised in the next half-hour if need be."

"_That won't be necessary. This was a local group working far away from any chain of command they have, and we've already found their hide-out and captured any remaining associated parties. Any other action taken will be handled off-world. Your Spartans can continue to sleep around and drink their merry way into Sunday for the time being."_

She allowed a smile. "They'll be more than pleased to hear it."

Osman nodded. "_Now, to the more official business. As I'm sure you've figured out, this is all very classified..."_

* * *

"_We'll have to put you under again."_

"_Why?"_

"_So you don't remember what we're about to do."_

Those were the last words he remembered hearing from the doctors. They'd been able to repair most of his injuries during his first round of anesthetic, which ranged from fractured ribs to lacerations to some internal bleeding, and one serious bruise on his collarbone. There were more injuries, much more, but if they'd told him, he'd forgotten.

Except his wrist. He'd woken up before they could fix that, and it was the most complicated. They needed to stabilize him first, keep him breathing and maintaining a healthy red blood cell count. One surgery to repair the damage to his liver. A re-setting of a few broken fingers on his _good_ hand.

Tom couldn't bear to look at his left hand before the second surgery. It was a gnarled mess of blood and skin and bone, and the pain was so bad that he'd let out a low, constant moan, hot tears streaming down his face from the agony of it.

It wasn't much better now. They had reset his wrist and fingers, and put metal pins and splints in it, wrapped up in a sterile bandage and cast. His bones might all be straight now, but it didn't take away from the pain.

He couldn't remember what had happened, either. His last memory before waking up here with nurses hovering around him was hazy. Four sets of eyes staring at him in the dark light of an alley, every single one of them intent on killing him. The taste of a soiled rag in his mouth. The smell of rain and blood. Fragments of reality not yet pieced together. He wasn't sure if he wanted to remember.

Did Sarah know where he was? Was she at home, napping on the couch while she waited for him to come back? His eyes stung again at the thought of her. He was alone in his room, and he felt completely isolated. Civilian hospitals were much more segregated than military medical bays. Here, if he couldn't see a nurse, that meant he was by himself. The thought scared him.

Tom tried to move, but found himself impeded by a number of machines. A breathing tube was shoved down his throat, for one, and he was hooked up to an IV and several nodes on his chest and arms that fed data onto the screens beside his bed. Beeps and wheezes and whines of them all working in synch to keep him alive created an unpleasant background noise, but he supposed it was better than total silence. However, it also meant he could not move without disturbing one tube or another.

Maybe it was for the best. He _hurt,_ hurt so much it was hard to keep from crying out. Maybe the morphine was running out. Had they given him morphine? He found a button near his good hand, and flexed a finger towards it. He moaned at the lance of pain it shot up his arm, but was able to press the call button.

He counted eleven steamboats until a nurse came in, looking at him expectantly.

"Pain getting bad, sir?"

He tried to nod, but it disturbed the tube in his throat and he had to concentrate on trying not to gag. The nurse seemed to understand, and held up a hand.

"Blink once for no, twice for yes," she said, holding up the appropriate amount of fingers.

"Do you want more pain medication?"

Two blinks.

She nodded. "Alright. Is there anything else you need before I leave?"

He thought for a moment, then blinked twice. He needed to know where Sarah was.

"Is it related to your current condition? No? What about next of kin? Yes?" She pulled a small chip from her pocket and expanded it into a full sized data pad. "Your contact is listed as Lieutenant Commander Philips. We have contacted him—" She stopped when she saw him wave three fingers in a beckoning motion. "Would you like to see the contact list?"

He blinked twice. Jesus, this was getting annoying. She held up the pad to him and he looked at his medical file, then was crestfallen to see no other person was listed. Of course they wouldn't be. The UNSC was not going to list the _Infinity's _entire chain of command on his medical records, just the minimum amount in case of emergency. His XO was the default contact for civilian-related emergencies, and he hadn't changed it. _Stupid._

He shook his head marginally and blinked once, hoping the nurse would get the message.

"Anything else, sir?"

He just closed his eyes, and heard the woman administer another dose of morphine before leaving his room. It flowed into his veins like cool water, sending an occasional shiver through him. Every time he moved it set fire to his muscles, so he tried to keep as still as possible.

He fought to stay awake, sending telepathic brain signals to Sarah in the hope she would somehow hear him and find him in the hospital. He wanted to see her face, tell her he was sorry, hear her voice griping at him that he'd almost gotten himself killed. It occurred to him now that the message Orenski had sent him had been false somehow, or at least had been monitored by whomever had attacked him. He sent another dose of brain signals to April, not having anything better to do, and wondered if she was still at the bar waiting for him.

He struggled to recall more of what had happened to him. He remembered them arguing about his face, or something… it wasn't clear, but they knew who he was. Tom was too weak to feel angry yet. Right now he only felt alone and in pain. He settled back further into the lumpy pillows, waiting, hoping, for Sarah to show up in his room.

She never came. He fell asleep waiting, trying to ignore the hard lump in his throat.


	12. Mea Maxima Culpa

**AN: **Man, such a difficult time with this chapter - I re-wrote the thing at least twice. Moving into the latter half of this story now, so I apologise that the pacing has been a bit stop-and-go for the past few chapters. Getting more into the groove now, so I'm hoping to keep it more consistent moving forward. Anyway, happy reading! Thanks again to everyone whose reviewed/followed/faved so far!

* * *

**Chapter Twelve - Mea Maxima Culpa**

It was always easy to tell the difference between the dead and the unconscious if one looked closely enough. Sarah had no words to describe the contrast; there were none adequate enough that she knew of, besides maybe an other-worldly stillness to those that had died. Perhaps it was beyond description. But looking at his face, one good, long look, told her all she needed to know.

He was gone before she'd made it to the hospital. A debriefing with Osman that had taken hours, seeming to loop in one long conversation with the same warnings and conditionals said over and over in an irritatingly redundant pattern, culminating in one last parting warning to keep everything hush-hush had kept her away from his bedside. Palmer had made a mad dash to the hospital after that, her feet seeming to drag maddeningly with every step like she was wading through mud, until finally she made it inside and was told not to go to the patient wing, but to the morgue instead.

There were lots of people in there. She didn't see their faces as she moved passed them, but knew without looking at them that they were the crew. _His_ crew, the people he'd bled and slaved for, who loved and respected him. There was an endless crowd of them, as if all seventeen thousand souls wanted to look upon the face of their captain one last time, all at once. They were both distinct and one big blur in her mind, but they all looked eerily calm. No tears or expressions of despair. It was something closer to grim acceptance.

How? How could they just be _okay_ with it? And _why _had they not turned on her yet? She had been the last one in his company, after all, and she was a Spartan. Spartans saved people. If she couldn't protect one man, one kind, sweet man, what did that make her?

_Your fault. __**Your**_ _fault._ It was screaming inside her head, but no one was saying anything. They just stood there looking at him. Most of them didn't even seem to notice she was shoving her way towards the table the nurses had laid him on.

Her Spartans were there. Different from the other crew, ones she seemed able to focus on properly. Fireteam Tempest and Crimson, Vendetta and Peru. She swore she even saw Fireteam Grand, the batch of Spartans she'd written condolence letters for months ago, but Palmer decided it was the trick of the light and her unresponsive brain. There were a lot of people around her after all. And she was dangerously close to losing the few, tattered threads of sanity she had left.

Fireteam Majestic stood out the most. The newbies, the one's she'd been grooming to be second in command, setting up for the more unique officer chain in the Spartan branch. They were capable, if rash and foolhardy. And they were all staring at her.

"He's dead," Grant whispered. "Oh god, he's _dead_, Commander." Tedra's normally pale skin was paper white, giving her a hollow, corpse-esque look herself. Palmer wondered what _she_ could possibly look like.

"How?" Hoya asked, broad features scrunching in confusion. "I thought he was safe."

"He was with you," DeMarco cut in, eyes narrowing. The first hints of accusation seeped into his voice. They cut deep to hear from her Spartans. _No, not mine. Not anymore. I am no Spartan. _"Weren't you just with him? Hell, you were sharing a room together."

She opened her mouth but found her tongue dried up, unable to produce any words. Explanations. _Excuses._ That's all they were. Her response could be a million different things, but that didn't make Tom any less dead. Sarah didn't even bother to question how DeMarco had found them out. It didn't matter.

Unable to speak, she looked at Lasky again—she refused to think of it as _his body,_ as something separate from him. He had a five o'clock shadow, an agonising sign of life. His eyes were closed, his lids dark with bruises and stagnant blood. He was even more pale than he'd been in the alleyway. The kind of pale only death produced, and the pallor highlighted his wounds. Cuts and dark splotches of broken veins covered his arms and chest. The nurses had taken the bandages off of him already, something that somehow surprised her. Of course he wouldn't need them now.

A memory surfaced, one of her father reading to her as a child, a real paper-bound book in his lap. A bible. She had no use for it as an adult, abandoning the faith her father had stubborning clung to when worlds turned to glass and the Covenant had lit the stars on fire with UNSC ships, but one verse stuck out, one she had always remembered. She'd asked him to read it every time he brought the Good Book out, both in Latin and then in English, loving the sound of the alien words and then hearing them again in familiar ones, amazed that two languages sounding so different could mean the same thing.

_Confíteor Deo omnipoténti_

_et vobis, fratres,_

_quia peccávi nimis_

_cogitatióne, verbo,_

_ópere et omissióne:_

_mea culpa, mea culpa,_

_mea máxima culpa._

_Ideo precor beátam Maríam semper vírginem,_

_omnes angelos et sanctos,_

_et vos, fratres,_

_oráre pro me ad Dóminum Deum nostrum._

_I confess to you almighty God_

_and to you, my brothers and sisters,_

_that I have greatly sinned,_

_in my thoughts and in my words,_

_in what I have done and in what I have failed to do,_

_through my fault, through my fault,_

_through my most grievous fault;_

_therefore I ask blessed Mary ever-Virgin,_

_all the Angels and Saints,_

_and you, my brothers and sisters,_

_to pray for me to the Lord our God._

She couldn't say those words to the Spartans either. They were still all staring at her, their eyes burning holes in her skin, but she couldn't look away from Tom. From how still he was. No muscles to pull his eyebrows together in worry, the expression he wore on a daily basis, no nerves to twitch the corner of his mouth when she managed to coax a laugh out of him at the end of a long day. He was gone. Everything he was and everything he'd been was just _gone_. And she hadn't been there to say goodbye to him.

Had he been afraid? Had he wished for her to be there, alone and in pain as he waited for her? Had he been happy to be finally released from the strains of his duties? Had he died high on morphine, unaware of anything around him and with no coherent thought to carry into death? The uncertainty bruised her soul.

_Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa._

She blinked, feeling hot tears sting her eyes and blur her vision, warping Tom's face. Palmer wiped at her face, not caring who saw her. _Semper Fortis_ was the Navy motto. Always Strong. Well, she wasn't anymore. She was no Spartan, so it didn't matter if she wept. She found a certain degree of comfort in that.

She blinked again, feeling a few droplets roll down her face, and heard the beep of a monitor. Soft, growing stronger. She blinked again, and saw Tom lying in a hospital bed, not a stainless-steel metal table, with wires connecting to half a dozen places on his arms and head.

Palmer became aware of a sharp pain in her lower back and sat up in the chair she'd fallen asleep on, scrubbing at her face. It was painful to swallow, and she sniffed at the moisture clogging her nose. _Oh god._ She struggled to breathe as she tried to acclimate herself.

Tom. He was in bed, alive, according to the heart monitor. She pressed a sob into her hand and took a shuddering breath, keeping her eye on him. Maybe if she blinked again he'd end up back on the table, dead and still. She dared not look away.

"Sarah?"

She saw a line of chocolate brown appear beneath his lids as he slowly opened his eyes, squinting under the harsh light. When he opened them fully, dreamy confusion turned to concern.

"Hey," he rasped. They'd removed the breathing tube, but it hadn't improved his voice much. "You okay?" His right hand slipped off the bed and weakly reached out to her. He only managed to raise it a few inches away from himself, but she grabbed it like a lifeline, careful not to touch the splints on his two fingers or to squeeze too hard.

"Tom," she murmured, feeling her voice crack. _Steady._ "I… you're _okay." _The sentence echoed in her mind. _You're okay, you're okay. _If she repeated it enough times, she might even believe it.

His head shifted on the pillow. She realised he was trying to nod, but the smaller, less obstructive tube taped to his cheek and running into his nostril made it difficult. "I'm okay," he repeated. "I didn't know you were here."

She blinked again, trying to get her lashes to dry. She took a deep breath. _It's fine. He's fine. Everything is fine._ "Arrived—" She cleared her throat and glanced at the clock. "Arrived about six hours ago."

"How'd… how'd you find out?" he asked. His thumb was smoothing over her fingers, and she focused on the sensation, still struggling to shake the fog of the dream away.

"I found you," she replied, voice soft. Any louder would risk another crack. "In the alley."

"Oh." It was all he said for a while. Sarah didn't elaborate, but she saw in his eyes that he understood the implications of what she'd said. She let the sound of his breathing and the lovely sound of his ECG ground her. The dream had left her in a cold chill, but her skin began to slowly warm up again. The point of contact with his hand helped. Muttering _he's alive_ under her breath every once and a while helped, too.

"I've never seen you cry before," he murmured, smiling faintly. "I guess I should feel honoured."

She forced a smile. "Bad dream. So you still don't win the honour." She didn't bother to tell him she'd dreamed about _him._ Her pride wouldn't manage the blow to let him be so _right_ about something making her cry.

"You should eat something," he said. "Get some air." She easily saw the longing he tried to hide in his face, an expression that screamed _please stay,_ but Thomas Lasky would never do something as _selfish_ as ask her to do that.

"I'm fine here," she murmured, relishing the small, nearly unnoticeable relaxation of his eyes at her words. _So many tiny movements, expressions._ Palmer carefully memorised each one, still trying to wash away the macabre image of his pale, motionless face from her mind.

He did a half-nod again, not having the strength to argue with her to freshen up. He blinked slowly, still under the effects of heavy painkillers, and did a lazy sweep of the room with his eyes. "Looks like I got a lot of visitors."

He had. Her nightmare had held some truth—the crew had stopped by the show their support. Balloons and cards and silly stuffed animals purchased from the gift shop decorated his room. The bridge crew, the officers, her Spartans—he'd gotten hundreds of people taking a moment out of their day to say _I hope you get better._ She was touched, but not surprised. _Infinity's_ crew loved their captain.

"You even got a Master Chief plushie," she said, looking at his bedside table. "Grant snagged the last one from the gift shop."

That got a weak smile from him. "I wonder… if you've got a line of stuffed figures."

"I don't think they're allowed to add a swearing voice box to children's toys. And I'm going to assume you did _not_ mean blow-up dolls, Lasky," she replied, and he let out a low wheeze. She realised it was a laugh. He reflexively curled in on himself, wincing.

"Ah—_ah. _Don't… don't do that. Feels like all of my ribs are broken," he rasped, settling back into the pillows. He looked like he wanted to rub at his sides, but one hand was held in a death grip from her and the other… well, they'd focus on his injured hand later.

"Most of them are."

"Sarah…."

She ground her teeth together but said nothing. Tom glared at her, and when he spoke, he was able to muster a fair amount of force behind the weak, quiet whisper.

"It's not your fault," he said resolutely. "And I'm alive. If anything, I should be thanking you."

"You almost died," she hissed. _Stop it. He isn't in any state to argue. _"How is that a favour?"

"I'm not dead, for one," he murmured. "And I would have been, had you not found me."

She shook her head. "I won't—I won't get into it, not right now, but…." _But it's all my fucking fault, Tom, all the way down. I didn't kill Halsey, I couldn't placate Osman, and I let Innies beat the fuck out of you because I was too slow on the draw to find you._

He managed to squeeze her hand. It was weak, and without her heightened sense she might not have felt it, but he did it. "But stow it, Commander."

She wondered how he could pull off his skipper voice when he was lying half-naked and bruised in a hospital bed. She absorbed his quiet strength, hoping to gain some herself. "Yes, sir."

"Good." He settled back into the pillows, apparently satisfied with the conversation. She watched the ECG monitor for a while, her eyes following every blip, which were all even and slow. And if the beeping couldn't convince her he was alive, the calloused warmth of his hand in hers sure as hell did.

* * *

Three coffees, a cookie tasting like old wood, and a room-temperature ham sandwich had been her diet for the past nineteen hours she had spent in the hospital.

Tom got more visitors. To her surprise, one of them had been Lord Hood himself. The Navy instinct to snap to a rock-hard salute when in the presence of a military demi-god had not abandoned Lasky, even in times of great injury, and he managed his best cobbled-together stand-to while lying in a hospital bed connected to wires and tubes. It had been hilarious to her exhausted mind, and rather impressive for a man in his state.

It had been half-formal, half-friendly. Hood had expressed his relief that Tom had survived, his gratitude to her for saving the Captain of the _Infinity_—which she swallowed painfully without comment—and his anger at the fact that insurrection was still a problem in 2558. Sarah had a sneaking suspicion that Hood didn't know of Osman's hand in the whole thing, but decided not to comment on it. She knew that ONI hid a lot from the UNSC, but wasn't keen on accidentally finding out just how _much_ was kept private. CINCONI had said that it was all _very_ classified, after all.

The Admiral had also stopped by in Scotland to see how the UNSC's flagship was handling repairs and upgrades, as it was conveniently close enough to Bravo-6 in Sydney to warrant an in-the-flesh appearance from CINCFLEET, as well as giving a briefing to the other senior officers on what their next course of action was. In private, of course, away from any additional rebel plots. Even before the briefing, Sarah knew what action the _Infinity_ would be taking—gunning for Halsey. She'd never been more ready to follow an order in her life.

Besides Hood, appearances from others had been boring in comparison. Tom's friend Orenski had stopped by, which had ended in a confusing conversation about the message she hadn't _actually_ sent him to meet up in a bar before Sarah loudly cleared her throat and tactfully stated this _sensitive _discussion should be shelved for a later date, wary of any more possible Innies lurking in nurse scrubs, no matter that Osman had assured her there were no more immediate threats on Earth. After some small talk and a well-wishing, Orenski departed for her flight back to Mars, promising to be in touch. Although Palmer knew the woman had nothing to do with the attack, she still couldn't help the small niggle of anger. Had Tom not gotten that message, they'd still both be back in the hotel room happily screwing one another's brains out.

_If you'd followed orders first time around Osman would've made sure that message hadn't been sent at all._

The lull in between visitors and nurses coming in to change his IV had left her with a lot of thoughts like that. Introspection was not something she did well, but she sure as hell had been doing a lot of it while she watched Tom sleep. Time to sit and think was time a Spartan usually didn't have, and she was having a difficult time adjusting to the idea of analysing her own shortcomings. Something else that had rubbed off on her, courtesy of Tom, and the whole _self-awareness_ thing was causing her a great deal of stress.

How stupid she'd been, to think they were safe. Palmer had been so wrapped up in the weird, _blissfully_ comforting euphoria they had created the other night that she'd let her guard down. And Tom had nearly paid for that with his life.

_A soldier that cannot protect those they care about is no soldier. _

The only reason Lasky was alive at all was thanks to ONI. Without that warning from Osman, she'd have slept the night away, completely unaware, and woken up next morning with a call informing her that the _Infinity _had been assigned a new CO.

She remembered Osman's words very well. _It was good we found it when we did. I almost didn't have time to send it to you._ Serin had not saved Lasky out of the goodness of her heart—far from it. She saved him to prove a point and send a very clear message to the both of them. _You will do what I say, or next time I won't hit send._

The next time she saw Halsey, she would blow that bitch to ashes. Otherwise Tom would pay the price, and that was a possibility that was unthinkable. She would not lose one of the last few people she held dear, and she would _not_ let his damn morality get in the way again.

Palmer allowed herself another glance in his direction. He didn't look peaceful. A deep frown scrunched his brow, exaggerating the lines of worry on his skin, built up by years of war and stress. He was still pale, too. Not the deathly white he'd been in the alleyway, or in her dream, but he lacked most of his natural colour. It made the sharp line of stitches running along his hairline stand out that much more.

Sarah had not killed many humans during her years of service. Most of the bullets leaving her rifle had found the bodies of Covenant forces, and when she _did_ kill her fellow Man, it had left a splinter of doubt in her heart. The enemy had been easy to identify when her gun had only been pointed at aliens.

Last night had been the first time she'd enjoyed killing a human being. It had felt _good_ to break human bones, to take human lives. To make them feel every bit of pain they had inflicted on Tom. She still remembered the unsettled look the police had given her, finding her covered in blood and high on adrenaline, but she still wasn't able to feel guilt over killing those four men. If anything, she wished it had lasted longer.

No, she decided, she absolutely did _not_ handle introspection well.

"God dammit," Tom muttered, glaring at the plastic cup of jello balanced on his fully casted left hand. The spoon was held awkwardly in his right, the two splints on his fingers making it difficult to hold it properly.

Under other circumstances, she'd find the sight hilarious. However, since she was currently to _blame_ for said sight…. "Do you ne—"

"No," he said immediately. He jabbed the spoon into the gelatin, holding the utensil like a knife. He dragged the spoon up the side of the cup, extracting a small chunk of red jelly, until he pressed too hard and managed to fling it directly into the hospital blanket.

His jaw clenched. "No jello, then." He moved to set the cup down on the small lap-table, which wobbled uncertainly in his injured hand, until she made a grab for the cup and saved it from splattering onto the table.

"I can help," she said, and his frown deepened.

"No," he repeated. "I'm fine."

"Tom—"

"You're not spoon-feeding me," he said harshly, a light flush of shame creeping up his cheeks. Although Tom was usually mild-mannered and calm, it was hard to forget he was military through-and-through. No one had ever held his hand, and he clearly wasn't prepared to start now.

"It'll only be until you can move your hand again," she insisted, wincing at the singular use of the word.

He flexed his right one, flinching at the pain. "I'll just have the nurses give me meals through an IV."

She sat back in the chair, blowing out a breath. Lasky continued to move his good—or less injured, anyway—hand, curling the digits he could and wiggling the ones that he couldn't. She'd had broken fingers before, and knew how much it hurt to move them, but she also knew the impulse to feel the pain, to make sure everything still worked. Soldiers were nothing without their strength and dexterity.

"You're as stubborn as a damn marine," she joked. It sounded fake and strained to her ears, but he didn't seem to notice.

"Did I ever tell you I didn't want to be in the military?"

_Jesus, where had that come from?_ "Really?" she asked, taken aback.

He nodded, still inspecting his hand. "Wanted to be a teacher. I never liked violence, or flying, or guns, for that matter. I didn't understand why a species capable of curing cancer and colonising other worlds had to solve their differences by killing each other. My mother wouldn't have it, though. 'The UNSC is the reason we exist today, Thomas,'" he mimicked, a hard knot in his brow. "'It's more important than anything else humanity can be a part of.' Cadmon had already been enrolled at CAMS, anyway, and was practically a god there. So I got shipped off there, too."

She opened her mouth, trying to think of something intelligent to say, but he kept talking. His voice sped up, like he needed to say it. Guess he wasn't handling the idle time well, either. "I was a terrible cadet. Didn't follow orders, didn't get along with anyone, was always last in drills. They called me an Innie-lover because I said we were fighting a pointless war. Chyler stuck by me—god knows why, but she was as stubborn about being my friend as I was about the war."

"And then the planet got glassed," Sarah murmured, feeling something close to dreaded awe.

He nodded, and shot a glance at her. "Yeah. We got shipped to Bravo-6 where we were debriefed by HIGHCOM. My mother showed up and told me I'd be relocating to another school the next day."

She didn't know what to say. Her story was a polar opposite to his—she couldn't wait to enlist, had a falling out with her parents because of it. And they were sitting in the same room together, today.

His mouth twitched. "Just… think it's funny, is all. Getting the shit kicked out of me by the people I'd called 'overtaxed farmers'."

"But you're a good captain," she finally said. "A great one, in fact. But—why didn't you just report your allergy? They could've discharged you for that, and you'd be out clean."

He shrugged, then hissed when it pulled on his ribs. "My brother. Chyler. CAMS. Felt like I was letting all of that down, wasting it for nothing. And I no longer wanted to be a teacher—I don't think I could handle being a civilian, waiting to see if more aliens would show up and glass the next planet I lived on."

She grabbed his arm, and he stopped twisting his hand around to look at it. "Well, for all that, you're an excellent soldier." _Better than me. So much better._

"I'm good at _paperwork,"_ he said, giving her a small, depreciating smile. "And looking at star maps."

"Well, you're a good _squid,"_ she amended. "You're no Spartan, but you're a damn good REMF."

He blinked heavily, letting the smile on his face spread and leaned back into the pillows. Even spending the majority of the past day sleeping, he still looked exhausted. It highlighted the strain on his face, and for the first time she truly realised just how much older than her he was. "Well—" he yawned, "—I think I'll use my pogue skills to take a nap."

"You still hungry?" she asked, eyeing the jello. "I can get you something else if you want."

"Not really," he murmured, letting his eyes close. His breathing was already evening out, his hands relaxing at his sides. "I'll just… just sleep for… for now…."

He was fast asleep. She envied him the ability to pass out on command, but knew he couldn't do it very often. She shifted in her chair, trying to find the lumbar sweet spot in the shitty old plastic seat, before resigning herself to a future of crippling osteoporosis. Sarah moved to half-lie on her side in the chair, trying to follow him into dreams. The nightmare she'd had yesterday still scared her, but she couldn't bear sitting there and thinking, and didn't want to leave him in case he needed anything.

So she dozed, and waited. His even breaths were a calming white noise, but the heart monitor made sure to reminded her with each beep that _she_ was the reason he was here at all. _Your fault. Your fault. Your fault. _The chant went with her into unconsciousness, plaguing her with more disjointed, frightening images and possibilities.


	13. A Mother's Love

**AN: **Long time no update! I took a big break to play Witcher 3 and Halo 3:ODST, plus some other cool games that came out in May, so this was shoved into the corner for a while. Another difficult chapter to write, too, though I've got more of an idea of where this is going now. Anyway, happy reading!

* * *

**Chapter Thirteen - A Mother's Love**

He couldn't put his belt on.

Twelve—no, now sixteen, according to his watch—minutes had passed with him standing in the bathroom trying to dress. The mornings had become his least favourite part of the day.

After being released from the hospital three days prior, it had been recommended to him that a nurse to come stay with him while he recovered in the hotel. Lasky was healing well for the most part, aside from his left hand, which apparently labelled him a temporary handicap. His refusal had been immediate, and argued emphatically when the doctor had insisted. Not that it had mattered—Sarah had been right behind him, stating _she_ would see him through the recovery just fine on her own. Her offer had not been optional, and he hadn't been able to dissuade her.

His jeans had been difficult enough to pull on with his partially-healed right hand. The button and zipper had taken a few minutes, but the belt was proving to be impossible. And since he'd lost most of his extra weight consuming nothing but crackers and jello for the last eleven days, he needed all the help he could get keeping his clothes in place.

"Tom—"

"I'm fine!" he muffled around the mouthful of t-shirt hem. He squinted down at the leather strip in his hand, trying to feed it through the first belt loop.

He heard Sarah cough on the other side of the door. "I'm glad to hear it, but I have to pee."

"I' b—" He spat out the hem of his shirt, still glaring down at the now-covered belt loops. "I'll be out in a minute."

He struggled for another thirty seconds before finally tossing the belt in the tub in frustration and resorting to holding his jeans up with his good hand. He shouldered the door open and found Sarah waiting patiently on the other side.

"You okay?"

"Fine," he said crisply.

She nodded. "Good. There's coffee in the kitchen for you."

"Thanks."

It was his third day out of the hospital, and Sarah had barely left the hotel room. Their conversations mostly consisted of short arguments about what she was and was not allowed to help him with, and aside from that they spent most of their time in silence.

When he got into the kitchen he found an already-made cup of coffee. Two milk to cool it down just enough to chug it back, no sugar. It brought a small smile to his lips as he sipped and settled against the counter.

She hadn't just prepared coffee, he swiftly found out. Eggs and toast awaited him on a plate, and he frowned when he saw that Palmer had cut up everything for him already into identical, tiny squares and placed it on the breakfast table for him. A quick glance around confirmed she had either already eaten and put away her dishes, or hadn't made herself food yet. He didn't know which one bothered him more.

"You said you liked scrambled eggs, right?" She appeared in the main room, on the threshold of the small hotel kitchenette.

"You didn't have to do this." He looked down at the meal and noticed she'd even laid out the cutlery for him. No knife, though.

Her face fell. "Well, I did." She held her hand up, and he saw her holding his belt. "You left this in the tub."

"Oh. Yeah."

Her eyes darted between his face and the belt. "If yo—"

"I don't need any help."

Her mouth quirked. "Maybe you don't, but your jeans do. You look like a teenager."

Lasky decided to ignore that comment. Instead, he shifted his weight, trying to keep his jeans fairly in place while he extended his good hand out to move the chair back. When he sat down, Palmer darted forward and reached for the back of his seat.

"I don't need you to—"

"It'll take two seconds—"

"I'm fine, Sarah!"

She looked at him and froze. "Fine."

He pulled his seat in using his feet and looked down at the plate again. She remembered right; he loved scrambled eggs. But he felt a dull nausea settling in the pit of his stomach, and the smell of cooked protein wasn't helping.

Palmer was across the room again, putting more grounds in the coffee machine. For the most part she'd mastered moving around at normal speed, something all Spartans had to do before interacting with civilians, but right now she wasn't bothering to control her movements. He noticed how quickly she moved when she was upset, or nervous, hopping around like a rabbit and seeming to teleport around the room if he took his eyes off of her.

He picked up a small wedge of toast. Toast fingers, Cadmon had always called them. He'd never personally seen the appeal of naming food after human limbs, but he'd found it funny when his brother had slipped them in between his knuckles and proclaimed he was an alien, waving the buttered rectangles of crispy bread in the air whenever mom hadn't been looking.

He shoved the toast into his mouth and tried to bury the memory. He washed it down with coffee and looked at Palmer again. "I'm sorry I yelled at you."

He saw the muscles in her back tense. She powered on the coffee machine and watched the pot as it began to percolate. "What were you planning on doing today?"

_In Sarah-speak that means don't worry about it._ He felt himself relax a little. "I don't know. Probably catch up on reports that still need doing. I have to file for re-stock of all the mess halls. We aren't too low on supplies right now, but it sounds like we might be doing some serious ops soon." He ate another toast finger. "Don't get a visit from CINCFLEET just for a few bruises. Bet that's why they're rushing the retrofit and repairs on _Infinity."_ More auxiliary firepower and support defenses. He refrained from saying anything more detailed, wary of repeating his previous mistake and saying too much, even if it was only Sarah.

"You shouldn't be doing paperwork on leave," she replied, turning around with a cup of coffee in hands.

He shrugged. "Not much else to do. And I'm bored out of my mind anyway; might as well do something constructive."

She sipped her coffee and nodded. There was a beat of strained silence before he picked up the dying thread of their conversation again.

"What about you? Any big plans?"

"Not really."

"I'm fine on my own, you know," he insisted. "You must be going stir-crazy, sitting around in the hotel room all day."

"I can handle it." She tossed back her coffee in one big gulp and set the empty cup down hard on the counter. "I'm going for a shower."

A week ago that sentence would have excited him, but right now it took all he could to hold back a sigh as she retreated back into the bathroom. The toast turned to sandpaper in his mouth, and he shoved his plate away. He carefully extricated himself out of the chair and grabbed his belt off the counter where Sarah had left it, and moved into the main bedroom. The sheets were a mess, a transgression that made his blood pressure spike, but it was another thing he couldn't bring himself to ask Palmer to do for him, so he simply kept the door firmly closed.

Not that she'd see it anyway. She slept in a separate bed and kept all of her things in the spare room, assuring him that it was just to keep up appearances to potential visitors. He'd swallowed the lie as best he could, and gave her her space while she licked her own wounds.

In the relative privacy of the bedroom, he tried to put on his belt again. Some old fashioned human ingenuity bred from partial disability and sheer force of will managed to thread the leather through the first two belt loops, and he was grinning in triumph when his comm beeped. He raised his wrist and felt his stomach drop.

_INCOMING VIDEO CALL / 03.18.2558 / 0934 SMT_

_**SENDER:**_ _MAJOR GENERAL AUDREY E. LASKY / [ID NUMBER REDACTED]_

_**PRIORITY: **__URGENT_

"Mother _fucker,"_ he whispered, letting go of the belt, ignoring it as it slid to the ground.

The last time he'd spoken to his mother was when he was being transferred to the Luna OCS Academy after Circinius IV was glassed. His attempts to contact her in the following months had been met only with dead static on the other end, and since then he'd made no effort to keep in touch.

_Now she calls me? Why now?_

It rang four more times before he worked the nerve up to answer. He gave himself a quick glance in the mirror, noting the bruises on his face, his hair that had grown just past regulations, and the dark circles under his eyes, and hoped she wouldn't say anything about his less-than-official appearance.

He held his breath and hit _ACCEPT._

"_Thomas." _Her face came into view on the expanded screen of his comm. She looked exactly as he'd remembered her; well-groomed, professional, and borderline sociopathically detached.

_What the hell do I call her? _"Sir," he settled on. He didn't know if that was the correct response or not. She didn't react to the reply, so he decided it was the right choice.

"_You've been debriefed by Admiral Hood on your… incident."_ It wasn't a question. She knew everything already, but this was the way his mother believed conversation happened.

He nodded. Her words managed to make him feel like he was a teenager again, and one that was in trouble. "Yes, sir. He offered his sincere condolences and apologized for the lapse in security."

If she picked up on the jab, she didn't show it. "_From my understanding it was you who made the lapse."_

He cleared his throat, which was slowly, inexorably, constricting. "I haven't violated any of the security guidelines set in place by ONI."

One brow flicked upwards for a fraction of a second, the first movement she'd made besides speaking, as if to say _that didn't stop you from being beaten in an alleyway._ The brow settled and her face resumed its stony look. "_Very well."_

His eyes dropped to the ground. The carpet looked so close, as if he were only two feet tall. She didn't say anything else, so he blurted what came to mind to fill the quiet. "Why did you call me?"

"_I cannot call my own son?"_

"Apparently not for thirty years, no," he replied, a touch of bitterness seeping into his voice. _Get a lid on it. She doesn't need any more ammunition than she's already got._

"_I believe I've gone over this with you already. The war—"_

"Is over," he interrupted. "But you've been busy, I know."

Her mouth pursed, almost into an expression of concern. "_You haven't contacted me either."_

_Don't pull that fucking card on me. _"I tried. After six missed calls, I stopped trying." He blew out a breath. "I'm fine. You can stop worrying over me."

This time she did pick up on the bite. Her left eyelid twitched. "_I wanted to see how you were. The reports were severe."_

"I know." He felt sick. Sick and so very, very tired. He looked at his mother and saw the hints of her own children in her bones, the echo of her genes. But he saw no compassion, no humour, no concern. The war had fucked up a lot of people, but Audrey Lasky had already been broken to start with.

The silence dragged on for an unpleasant amount of time before his mother spoke. "_Do you have someone to help you while you recover?"_

_Palmer._ He wondered what they'd think of each other. "Yes. A fellow officer."

"_Thomas," _she began, then paused. "_A lot of people depend on you."_

He frowned, not catching her train of thought. "I know that."

"_That being said," _she continued. "_I caution you on engaging in unprofessional beha—"_

A vein in his temple began to throb when he realised what she was getting at. "You're fucking kidding me, right?" Apparently his mother had heard about Sarah after all. _The last people to find __**out**_ _we were sleeping together was Palmer and I. I haven't even mentioned her and you're already done my throat about it._

"_Thomas,"_ his mother warned. "_I_—"

"It's Captain, actually," he said, his heart pounding hard against his ribs. "And I know all there is to know about _protocol._ I took a test on it before I _became_ a captain. And even if that weren't the case, I'm forty-seven years old. I know how to conduct myself."

"_That isn't what I've been hearing."_

"I thought you said you never listened to gossip."

"_Only when it is untrue. It becomes troubling when there is truth to it." _She pantomimed another look of concern, and it only served to make him angrier.

"Do you have some insight into my personal life that I'm not aware of? You've already assumed I sleep around without even asking me first?"

"_I'm asking you now. __**Are**_ _you sleeping with the Spartan woman?"_

His eyes closed. He almost hung up on her. It would be so easy, and she wouldn't dare call back again. He couldn't imagine how long she'd worked up the nerve to make _this _call. But then he'd be acting like the child she was making him into, and then she'd be right. He opened his eyes and looked her square in the face with his best Captain Glare, which seemed to unnerve her on some level. _Good._

"I'm not sleeping with anyone. And even if I was seeing someone, it's not any of your business."

"_You're my son," _she reminded him. "_I would like to know about the significant things in your life."_

"You weren't at my graduation at OCS," he hissed. Talking to her had been a mistake. "You didn't call me when I made XO for the _Infinity,_ or when I made Captain. You know I still haven't seen Cadmon's grave, either? And now you're calling me, almost two weeks after I was almost beaten to death in the street, and chastise me about _protocol. _You don't give a shit, you just don't want me to make you look bad, because now someone's spread some rumour that I'm fucking a Spartan and can't keep my mouth shut when talking to civilians." His voice ended in a stilt, like he'd been cut off in the middle of his sentence. The screen shook slightly in front of him, because his entire arm, his entire _body,_ was shaking with rage.

"_I see." _Was Audrey's only response. She didn't even look angry. "_Goodbye, Thomas."_

* * *

Palmer had her ear pressed to the door of Lasky's room, and held her breath when she heard his comm go silent. She'd heard his conversation from the bathroom, before she'd even gotten undressed or into the shower, and couldn't resist listening in. He _never_ spoke about his family. She had to drag the story of his dead brother out of him after he got _really_ drunk with her in the officer's mess after hours years ago, before things got so goddamn complicated between them and they were just friends. His parents were a complete mystery to her, the ones he seemed most adamant about keeping secret.

Whatever she had pictured for his family, it wasn't this. Jesus. She thought _her_ family had problems. Right now she felt like calling her conservative, pacifist born-again Christian father and telling him she loved him with all her heart after hearing Lasky speak to his mother for five minutes.

The sound that came out of the bedroom next wasn't one she expected to ever hear from Tom. It wasn't yelling, or throwing his comm across the room, or, as she expected, more silence. She heard him begin to sob.

She froze. Tom, _crying?_ Lasky, who'd been silent when the nurses reset his wrist, who stayed dried-eyed when she'd fucked up and almost died on Requiem, who put on his skipper pants every day and took care of seventeen thousand people with a smile on his face, was _crying._

Palmer was terrified.

She thought about sneaking away and leaving him be—she hated when people saw her cry, and couldn't imagine he found it fun either. He was a big boy, like he'd said to his mother; he knew how to take care of himself. Besides, what the hell could she say to make him feel better? _She _was the last person she'd want to comfort her. And just because Tom enjoyed sharing his bed with her didn't mean he wanted to share his mommy issues with her, too.

Palmer began to slowly back away from his door when she heard something else.

"_God—"_ he whispered, his voice breaking at the end. There was a small squeak of springs as he sat down on the mattress, and she could easily picture him holding his head in his hands.

She was running away again. She'd nearly gotten him killed and now, when he needed a shoulder to cry on, she was retreating into the bathroom like a child sneaking back up the stairs after hearing their parents fighting. Palmer closed her eyes and sighed. _Mea culpa _began to blare in her head again, like an alarm. _Go._

Sarah pressed her fingers to the doorknob and twisted it hard—too hard; she heard it creak against the wood—so that she couldn't back out at the last minute and pushed inside his room.

She saw him sitting on the corner of an unmade bed—an odd thing, since he was usually a nutcase for tidiness—with his hands hanging limp in between his legs. His breathing was erratic, alternating between shallow and deep breaths, and his face was an odd mix of pale and red, his skin splotched and shiny. His head cocked slightly towards her when she came in, but he didn't look at her.

"I heard… your mother sounds like a piece of work." She moved awkwardly into the room, shuffling slowly across the carpet. _What a terrible thing to say._

He let out a short, sharp laugh that didn't sound like him at all. He wiped his face with his good hand, shaking his head. "I'd hoped I'd never hear from her again."

He looked so _defeated._ She drummed up the courage to sit next to him on the mattress, which sagged considerably under her greater weight. He braced his legs to stop from rolling into her and swallowed hard.

"I had a big fight with my parents before I enlisted. My father swore he wouldn't speak to me again if I joined the military."

Lasky looked up at her. He wasn't exactly crying now, but his chest still shuddered with each breath. "And?"

"And he eventually got over it. Took him five years, but he caved after my first tour as an ODST and came to see me in the hospital after I'd broken my leg."

His mouth twitched. "Sounds stubborn."

She smiled. "More stubborn than me." Sarah sighed. "I… don't know what to say, Tom. We've all got family problems, but… I didn't grow up with that. My parents gave each other the silent treatment, sure, and my mother can be pretty nasty when she's pissed off, but they always made sure I knew they loved me. Your…." Her mouth twisted. "Your mother sounds pretty, well, spook-like."

His shoulders rose and fell. "Nothing to say. She's always been like this. Just… a bad time to talk to her." He blew out a long breath. "I kind of lost it on her. She started talking about—"

"About me," she finished.

"Right."

Palmer lifted her arm and wrapped it around his shoulder. She felt something inside her break when Tom, who was undoubtedly the strongest person she'd ever met, pressed his face to her neck and forced out laboured, struggling breaths, like his body had forgotten how to cry and was fighting to remember.

She curled towards him, trying to protect him with her strong Spartan body against something else she couldn't stop or shield him from. When she felt the wetness of tears on her collarbone, Sarah silently added Major General Audrey Lasky onto her list of people she wanted to put a bullet into.


	14. Beasts of Burden

**AN: **Aaaaand time for some actual plot! Enjoy the drama, everyone!

Also - I changed the cover of this that I think better fits the overall tone of the story. Found a lovely shot of the both of them during Spartan Ops and used my extensive MS Paint skills to crop it into a new story cover.

* * *

**Chapter Fourteen - Beasts of Burden**

His hand was not getting better.

He went for physiotherapy twice a week, appointments that Sarah always drove him to. He moved what parts of his hand he could, rotated his wrist the few degrees it would turn, and the therapist would insist that he was making progress. He told her that the skin around his wrist, running all the way up to the meat of his palm was numb, and she assured him it was a normal symptom. Lasky had been fooled at first, too afraid to ask more questions in the event of finding out something he didn't want to hear, but he finally realised what she had meant. Numbness was a possible symptom of severe hand and wrists injuries, yes—it was just a permanent one.

At times, he could barely uncurl his fingers. The anti-inflammatories would help, but it didn't fix the problem or give him any real mobility back. They just staved off the pain.

It felt like Corbulo again, sitting in Mahaffey's office feeling betrayed by his own body. Except now, he had more to lose. Now he didn't half-hope for it at night so that he could finally go home and be free from his mother's shadow. Now he had a small city's worth of people to look after on the flagship of humanity and a number of Admirals breathing down his neck to get the job done right. Now, he had a Spartan by his side that remained silent most of the day and gave him so much personal space that he felt alone in the same room with her. Now, when he wanted it the least, the thing he'd prayed for as a sixteen year-old was finally answered. Him and Cadmon had only ever practiced their mother's semi-present Judaism as an excuse to blow money on ridiculous presents during the holidays, but right now he felt particularly offended by God.

The saying _be careful what you ask for _was painfully clear in his mind, and he wasn't sure who to blame; the entity mankind had been attempting to find in the stars for their entire existence, or the equally enigmatic, equally dangerous Office of Naval Intelligence. Sarah had mentioned in passing that it was CINCONI that had informed her of his attack, and from there he'd fit in most of the puzzle pieces himself, especially since his last briefing with the Admiral hadn't gone so well. He was beginning to even doubt his safety—and privacy—in the afterlife. Osman was nothing if not omnipresent.

They'd sent him a get-well information packet in the form of a one-page list of names. These were the only medical professionals he was cleared to speak to about his injury, and even then the events surrounding it were still classified. The packet had come right after he'd discovered a large patch of skin was numb on his hand, as if he'd mentally sent out some signal to them about his condition. He wouldn't be surprised if they were monitoring him somehow.

Lasky was surprised that he was allowed to be in a civilian doctor's office after the rather strict guidelines that had been set to him, though. He decided not to dwell too long on ONI's ability to manipulate any person they wanted, even civvie docs trying to make a living for themselves, blissfully ignorant of the dark machine watching and churning overhead.

Sarah did not sit with him while they waited to be called into the examination room. She rarely ever sat now, which was a symptom of being confined to a hotel room. She paced the length of the waiting area in the office, and the other patients in the room seemed uncomfortable with her slightly-too-fast movements. She would pause occasionally, freezing with an inhuman stillness and cocking her head to listen to the whispers of a conversation in another room, something only she could hear, only to resume pacing when she was either satisfied or bored with what she'd heard. The resemblance to a beast of prey was uncanny, and matched with her quick movements, she looked rather terrifying.

He massaged his hand as he watched her. She was dressed in the most inconspicuous clothing someone could wear—jeans, sneakers, and a dull-coloured leather jacket—and couldn't possibly be _more _conspicuous.

"You know, you could actually wear the floor out by doing that," he said, trying for humour. It sounded weak, but it was the only thing he could do that provoked a response from her, other than him struggling with something.

Her eyes flicked to him, her expression a mix of anger and something glassy he couldn't place. Whatever it was, it was dragging most of her attention somewhere far away. It was the only expression she ever wore now. "They said fifteen-fifty for the appointment." Her head turned to look at the clock and snapped back so quickly he would've missed it if he'd blinked. "It's sixteen-thirty now."

He settled into his seat and gave her his best smile. "That's nothing. My job title _requires _me to sit and wait around. You'll have to get used to it if you want to be a real officer."

"I wait plenty," she hissed, then about-faced and resumed her pacing.

He said no more. They waited thirteen more minutes in silence until they were called into the specialist's office.

He was seated on the patient bed and Sarah leaned against the wall, her eyes glued to the doctor as she sat down in her chair next to Lasky. To the woman's credit, she didn't seem unnerved by the Spartan stare. Maybe this wasn't some random civvie doctor after all.

"Captain Lasky," she began. "First thing's first; how's your left hand feeling?"

"Numb," he answered, trying to twitch his ring finger and swallowing a dull panic when nothing happened. "And very sore."

"When did you injure your hand?"

"About a month ago." He felt Sarah's eyes flick to his face for a moment.

The doctor pulled out a datapad from her pocket and presumably looked at his medical file. "How?"

He cleared his throat. "It… was a military-related incident." She looked up. "It's somewhat classified." _Somewhat meaning I will face a trial-by-Osman-style dressing-down if I so much as mention the word insurrection. _

She nodded, apparently unsurprised with his mysterious response. "Can you at least tell me the type of injury, if not the context in which it happened?"

"Blunt trauma," he replied. Sarah looked at him again. "My wrist was badly broken."

She typed something on the pad. "I can see the results of your physiotherapy aren't bringing much relief or improvement."

"No."

She typed a few more things. "Unfortunately, it looks like the damage is too severe for physical therapy to be a viable treatment option, or at least right now," she continued. "I'll have to do some scans on your wrist to be certain, but the preliminary results suggest that this type of handicap is permanent."

His throat constricted, but he forced out the words he needed to ask her. "Is there a way to fix it? You said physiotherapy wasn't an option 'right now'."

She nodded. "Surgery is a good option. We can repair the nerve damage that has been done to restore feeling and mobility, and then recovery will be a matter of re-learning how to use your hand."

"What's the catch?" Sarah asked, and the doctor looked up at the Spartan.

"There are risks," she began. "The first of which is that I would have to issue a medical leave of approximately six months, if the damage is as extensive as it sounds. The recovery period for this type of surgery is lengthy. And painful."

"What about right now?" he asked. "Would I be on leave now, with my hand the way it is?"

"If your duties are not impaired by the injury, then no, not really. Combat is, of course, ill-advised in your state, but I'm familiar with the UNSC's regulations on being medically fit for service. Any non-combat role can be performed while injured if the injury does not also impede the ability to perform in that role. Light duty is preferable, and leave is the best option, but I can give you some pain medication that won't make you drowsy, and then it would be reasonable to send you back to duty."

"I'm a senior officer aboard a ship," he said. Normally he'd keep his mouth shut, but she'd been pretty high on the list ONI had sent him, and she'd called him Captain already. She knew bits and pieces, just not the full story. "That doesn't count as active duty?"

She smiled. "The Captain of a vessel isn't technically supposed to be in an active combat role. You oversee the personnel carrying out that role, you just aren't directly involved. Your duties—traditionally speaking, of course—are more intellectually-based. Naval strategy and audits don't necessarily require large physical mobility."

"Why do you know so much about loopholes in UNSC regulations?" Sarah interjected, her body already tensed for some possible threat.

The doctor merely smiled. "A requirement for my occupation. I see a lot of military personnel for their injuries while on medical or shore leave—many are referred to me directly from their CO or the medical staff stationed with them. I need to know what they can and cannot do. Most still want to serve, even when badly injured, and if I can medically support them to return to duty, I will." She turned back to the datapad. "So, there's the first issue. The risks of the surgery are relatively low percentage-wise, but they are still significant. The biggest risks are total paralysis of the hand and wrist, a rejection of the replacement nerve cells causing further nerve damage that can also affect your upper arm and possibly your shoulder, and then, more benign, is a simple ineffectiveness. Your body doesn't reject the synthetic replacement, but it also doesn't properly integrate with the natural cells, and your hand will stay as it was before."

He blew out a breath. "How would the surgery force me to take leave? What if it's ineffective and nothing happens?"

"It's a fairly involved surgery. The nerves in your hand and wrist are small, especially in your fingers. We'd have to first get a map of the neural network in your hand and create a mold, if you will, to act as replacement nerves and plant that into the damaged area. Depending on the severity and extent of the damage, the mold could be for just a few pathways, or for your entire forearm. I'd have to do scans to find out. Either way, you'd be left with significant pain and almost total immobility of your left hand—and often, this nerve pain and immobility can extend all the way up your entire arm—until your scars heal and we assess how effective the surgery was. You would be considered medically unstable until we confirmed if the implant takes to your nervous system or not."

_I'm already medically unstable with my allergy, _he thought, but decided not to bring that up. He didn't want to give her any more reason to issue medical leave than she already had.

The doctor minimized the pad and slipped it back into her pocket. "I'll leave you some time to think on it. I'll come back in a few minutes. If you have any more questions don't hesitate to ask."

She exited the room and he sagged against the bed. The paper cover over the top of the mattress crinkled when he moved. "Alright," he said finally, after a moment of silence. "I think I'll hold off on that for now."

"What?" Sarah said immediately, pushing away from the wall. "Why?"

"I can't go on a six-month medical leave," he said, watching her straighten out, as if readying for a fight. "You heard the briefing we got from brass. There's no way I can bow out of _Infinity's_ next mission."

"You aren't bowing out, you're _crippled,"_ she insisted. "Don't you want your hand back the way it was?"

"I want a lot of things, Sarah," he responded, hoping he didn't sound as tired as he felt. "But this isn't a top priority right now. And I can function for the most part, anyway." He looked at his hand and tried to make a fist. The result looked like a curled tangle of knuckles and joints, but he could at least move it. "My whole arm could stop working for half a year if I get this done now. It's not practical, not with the way things are right now. I'd be asking everyone to do things for me."

She shook her head. "You can't just give up. What if it's too late? What if the damage is so severe because you waited too long and you're stuck with a gimp hand for the rest of your life?"

"Then I'm fucked then, aren't I?"

He saw a new expression from her. It was the expression of someone who was coming up for air and realising the water was much further above their head than they initially thought. "Why are you so calm about this?"

"Why aren't you?" he countered. "It's _my _trashed hand. It's my decision what to do with it, and my decision _right now_ is to suffer for a few more months and do my job. I worked my ass off to make Captain, which only happened because Del Rio was an asshole. If I take leave now, _Infinity _will need a replacement, and god knows where I'll be assigned when I'm fit for duty again." He wanted to reach out to her—she was visibly upset, a rare sight for her—but she stood as far away from him as she could in the small patient room.

She didn't seem to like his answer. "You can't do something for yourself _one fucking time, _can you, Tom?"

"I have," he replied slowly. "I slept with you, didn't I?"

"And look at how that fucking turned out, huh?" She leaned against the wall again and glared at the corner of the office, refusing to say more.

He had no answer to that. There wasn't one, or least not a good one. He couldn't accuse Sarah of feeling guilty about this whole mess, because he already knew she was. Probably more than he could tell. And she seemed bent on staying as far away from him as possible while she repaid whatever debt she thought she owed him while she helped him recover.

_And when I do get my hand fixed, she'll stay away for good. She said as much in the bar; less damage control with distance between us._

He wanted to be angry at her, to stand up and insist that it wasn't _his_ fault that he'd been beaten in an alley, either. It was an _event that happened,_ and he'd like to bury it and forget it as soon as possible. He wanted to spend the rest of his leave in relative peace, with her if they could manage it, so couldn't they just apologize and move on?

Instead he sat in silence on the bed until the doctor came back in and he thanked her for her time. Sarah said not a word. Not in the office, not in the elevator, and not on the ride back to the hotel. The quiet made his temples throb. He couldn't say those things. She was unreachable. And he was tired, too tired to fight. The call from his mother had drained what strength he had, and even though Sarah had sat with him then, held him while he forced out his demons, it had only driven her further away. It had been the last time he'd touched her, and even then she'd gone to her own room that night, leaving him in a bed too big still feeling so very small.

They arrived at the hotel with a startling abruptness—perhaps because she laid on the brakes a bit too harshly. Their suite felt more and more like a prison every day. He hadn't ventured outside unless it was for an appointment—all he knew for weeks were the dimensions on the hotel room. With a deep-rooted shame, he realised he was too afraid to go outside on his own.

Sarah unlocked their hotel room and ushered him in. She swept past him, throwing her jacket on the back of the couch and immediately heading back to the door.

"Where are y—"

"Going for a run," she responded, and closed the door hard behind her.

"Okay," he said to the empty room, and sat down on the couch. "Have fun."

* * *

It took her fourteen minutes to get out of town. In twenty-two minutes, she was in open fields, and just after the half-hour mark, she was running along the coastal cliffs of the ocean. It was harsh weather; although the sky was relatively clear, the wind was strong and cold, and sprayed her with sea foam. Occasionally she even felt the prick of ice chips, droplets of seawater frozen from the wind.

She ran for a while, numb and cold to the bone, until it became hard to breathe. Not because she was tired; she could run further and faster for hours more. It just hurt too much to draw breath. Her brain finally caught up with her and the thoughts that followed constricted her throat and crowded her lungs.

Sarah slumped down on the craggy rockline, hard stalks of grass poking her skin as she curled up into a gangly ball of Spartan limbs. She wanted to cry, but couldn't force the grief out. She wanted to scream, too, but her voice had left her. She was totally alone in her mind. Too many thoughts and not enough space.

Tom was _fucked._ Crippled for the rest of his life, and when given the option to fix it, he called on duty as an excuse not to. It would be too _inconvenient _for everyone if he had to recover from surgery.

His hand was paralysed because of her. And he couldn't get it _fixed_ because of her. They still had to catch Halsey, still had to right the mess she wasn't good enough to clean up in the first place. _Fucked fucked fucked._ That's what he was. She'd altered a person's ability to _move_, and then screwed things up so horribly that they weren't able to take the option to recover.

Tom couldn't put his belt on, and it was _all _her fault. _Mea maxima culpa._ Catholic guilt had been drilled into her since birth, and now it was driving her insane.

And he thought that she was angry with him. She saw that sad, lonely expression when they both went to their own bunks at night. She could see how badly he needed company, but she couldn't, wouldn't, give it to him. She was too happy when she was with him, too peaceful and blissfully brain dead when wrapped in his arms, and she didn't deserve his kindness or his company. How could she be _happy_ when everything was so _fucked?_

She wanted to regret sleeping with him. It was the dumbest fucking thing she'd ever done in her career. But walking back into the hotel suite with him, seeing his solemn, sweet face, she'd wanted him so badly the only thing she could think to do was run.

She still wanted him. She'd probably want him for the rest of her life. He made her feel safe and secure. Warm and loved and so many other things she'd forgotten about since enlisting at eighteen.

No more warm. No more secure. That's what had gotten him crippled in the first place, and getting close again would just mess with her head. She _needed _to kill Halsey. Needed to kill anyone that stood in the way, and then, _then_ the debt would be paid. Then Tom could take leave and get his hand fixed and she could finally stay far away from the only thing that made her feel human.

She'd almost cracked the night his mother had called him. She gotten a brief taste of holding him again, of remembering what his hair smelled like and rocking him slowly as he did the first selfish thing he'd ever done in his life—cry in front of a friend. For a few hours, the politics and the spook bullshit and the tension between them didn't matter. It had been them, sitting there, alone together. It had been so horribly _nice_, and she felt even worse for _enjoying_ the opportunity to be near him while he had his tiny mental breakdown. It hadn't been about her; he'd just needed someone to sit with him for an hour or two while he got it out of his system. It could've just easily have been another officer, or that lovely, _very pretty very nice_ navigational ensign who _always_ stared at him with big dopey blue eyes when he said a warm good morni—

_Stop it._

It wasn't about her. It never could be. She didn't deserve the warm good mornings, the extra banter outside of work hours, the shots of whiskey they shared in his cabin when some pile of shit hit the fan that day. She did not deserve to see him in tears, to be trusted with something so terribly human and vulnerable. And she _absolutely did not_ have the right to the miniature heaven of sleeping with someone who understood her, _really _understood her. Not when she'd actively destroyed Tom's life with her own inability to hit the target.

_Kill Halsey. Wipe away the mess. And keep him safe. Beyond that, keep your head—and your hands—out of his business._

* * *

It was dark outside when Sarah returned to the room.

Tom was on the couch, right where he'd been when she'd left, and she felt a sick sense of curiosity bubble up, wondering if he'd been waiting for her to return. _Of course he was. You're such a wonderful friend, aren't you?_

She swept past him, avoiding his gaze, and grabbed a towel from the hotel closet. She wiped at her hair and face, which had been blasted and drenched by windy ocean air, and moved to the kitchen. She wasn't really all that hungry, but she needed to keep herself busy and away from Lasky. If he noticed her disheveled appearance, he made no comment.

In fact, he was oddly silent as she made her meal—a sandwich. The deli meat and fresh veggies were wasted on her, the whole thing looking like something out of a food commercial but not garnering any sort of reaction from her, even though she was eating _fresh_ _vegetables_ for one of the few times in her life. She grabbed a can of pop from the fridge and slowly made her way to the living room again, now wondering at his behaviour.

She did meet his eyes this time. It wasn't what she was expecting. He looked like his old worried self for a moment, in full Captain mode, and she felt her back straightened on instinct, resisting the urge to belt out _officer on deck!_

"What is it?" she asked, freezing on the threshold of the small kitchen, plate and drink in hand.

"I got a message from brass about an hour ago," he said. "Apparently the retrofits and repairs are done early. We're back in action 1500 tomorrow." The way he said _apparently _made it clear that whatever the reason was for cut off leave time was _definitely_ not quick repairs.

She froze. "What?"

He nodded and scrubbed a hand through his hair, making it stick up at the back. "Guess Osman got the results of my tests back. Crew's being called back to Scotland as we speak. She wants this mess with You Know Who fixed yesterday."

"But… why the hurry? What happened?" She set her food down on the coffee table, even less hungry than she was a minute ago. "What about your appointments and… and everything else?"

He gave her a tired smile. "I said no to the surgery. Now they don't have to beat fear into another Captain; they've got one ready to go now."


	15. Update and Moving Forward

Hi all,

I've been getting a number of lovely messages asking me to please continue this story (which I greatly appreciate!). I intended on piggybacking off of Halo 5's plot to continue this story, but since Halo 5 was so horrifically disappointing, it's drained any and all desire for me to finish this. I'm still going to write for Halo, and have every intention of writing for this pairing again at some point, it just won't be for this story specifically.

I've written a bunch of other halo pieces since posting the last chapter of Tension, which are far more polished and well-written than this story (this isn't a dig for praise; I've improved a lot since starting this and writing Tension has helped me do it, it's just... a bit rough, compared to my newer stuff), so if you're looking for more of my work, I invite you to stalk my profile!

Lastly, thanks a _whole big bunch_ to everyone who faved, followed, reviewed and sent me lovely messages about this story! It's so encouraging, and I really cannot express enough gratitude for the wonderful responses I get for my writing. I hope to see all of you around!

Cheers!


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